


Fragments of A Shattered Life

by ohinyan



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 23:11:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 35
Words: 39,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohinyan/pseuds/ohinyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After POTW Jack's life takes a turn for the worse and he desperately needs help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Familiar Face

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU set after Parting of the Ways. A Jack-centric fic that starts as Doctor Who (with the 10th Doctor and Rose, then Martha) but crosses over to Torchwood in later chapters. Don't be misled by the first couple of chapters. This is a very dark fic.
> 
> Warnings: Explicit violence, non-con in later chapters.

"So what's so great about this planet then?" asked Rose.

The Doctor danced around the console pulling levers and twisting knobs. "Nirvana? It's the perfect planet to relax. A pleasure planet with shopping, pampering, loads of culture, did I say shopping, and best of all centuries with no wars, terrorists or civil unrest."

The Doctor and Rose had had weeks of disastrous visits to supposedly peaceful planets which had invariably led to running for their lives and narrow escapes from death. They needed a break and the Doctor had searched carefully for the perfect planet and time with no risk to life or limb.

As a special treat the Doctor booked them into the best hotel in Sundora City, a stunning construction of glass and sweeping spires. The hotel suite was as big as Rose's mum's flat on the Powell estate and had a jacuzzi which could fit at least six people. Of course Rose was in it alone, having failed to entice the doctor in with her. She leaned back with a glass of the best Nirvanan champagne in hand watching the flat screen TV built into the wall.

The programme was a music compilation which Rose liked because it was reminiscent of Earth 20th century music, even though they were currently 5000 light years from Earth and in the year 200,205.

Sinking beneath the water she massaged her scalp then emerged ready to use the hotel supplied luxury shampoo. As she came up she caught sight of the singer currently on screen. His voice sounded familiar but she was thrown for a moment by his appearance. Waist length dark hair and a fantastically toned physique which the music video was showing to great effect. As Rose dragged her gaze from the man's body to his face she leapt out of the jacuzzi in shock running into the suite's lounge screaming for the Doctor.

The Doctor ran into the lounge with alarm, to find a naked Rose dripping on the carpet in a state of shock. Expecting some sign of danger he looked around frantically "What ? What ?"

"Doctor it's Jack !" exclaimed Rose.

The Doctor looked around again, "What do you mean, where ?"

Pointing back into the bathroom Rose explained. "On the TV. He's here on this planet, singing in a music video." Realising how unlikely that sounded she began to rationalise. "But he can't be, we left him in 200,100 that's over 100 years ago and you said he was rebuilding the Earth." She looked down sadly, "I always thought you just didn't want to tell me that he was dead."

The Doctor squirmed inwardly, desperately wanting to avoid that conversation. He handed Rose a towel.

"Are you sure he was in that video?" he asked. "It could just be someone who looked similar."

"It was him!," cried Rose, "I even recognised his voice. Can we run this TV back, you know like sky plus back home. Then you can see it yourself."

Minutes later they sat together on the edge of the jacuzzi watching the video. It was definitely Jack. As they got to the part that Rose hadn't seen before the video got more and more raunchy, ending up with a practically naked Jack being ravished by several nubile young girls, boys and (presumably) very attractive aliens though Rose couldn't tell about that. "My god," breathed Rose, "that's practically pornographic." At the end of the video a voice over came on saying "Don't miss out, call 873 164."

"Call it," cried Rose. "We need to find him."

The Doctor was more circumspect. "That's Jack alright," he said wryly, "but just calm down for a minute Rose. We have to consider all the possibilities. Could this be Jack before we met him."

The Doctor really, really, hoped that was the case. "He could be pretending to be a pop star, and selling tickets to a fake concert planning on running off with the money. We know he used to be a conman."

Rose was not convinced. "But apart from the long hair he looks just like our Jack."

"It might not be from very long before we met him," argued the Doctor.

Reluctantly conceding the point, she said "I guess so, and anyway how could he have got here and in this time if it is our Jack."

"Oh, that would be no problem," answered the Doctor, "if it is our Jack, he must have used his vortex manipulator."

Suddenly encouraged again Rose swung into action, marching to the wardrobe to find her clothes. "We have to go see him ! Call that number and arrange it."

The Doctor stopped her. "We can't do that. If it's Jack before we met him we'd cause a paradox. He had never seen us before that night in 1941."

Rose had a sudden flash of inspiration. "You could go ! He wouldn't recognise you since you regenerated, so you could talk to him and find out if he's our Jack or not."


	2. Unwelcome Revelations

The Doctor was worried. He didn't want to go see Jack. If it was Jack before he met them then it was pointless and if it was Jack after the Game Station then he didn't want to see him, but of course he couldn't admit that to Rose.

The Doctor tried to talk her out of it, arguing that this must be an earlier Jack and they should leave well enough alone. However Rose was adamant. What he did manage to do was get her to agree to investigate as much as they could before going to see Jack. He desperately hoped they would find out some information that would give him an excuse not to go.

So that evening found them in a local bar chatting to a group of people and asking about the music video they had seen. There seemed to be genuine bemusement from the people they were talking to. No one seemed to recognise the pop star that the Doctor and Rose were describing.

Eventually one of the older guys in the group asked them when and on what channel exactly they had seen the video. Rose described the music video programme she had been watching on the MKN channel. Light dawned on their friend and he laughed. "Oh that guy. That's not a music video that's an advert!"

"An advert ? For what, a concert ?" asked Rose.

"No he's not a musician," replied their new friend, "though I must admit he does sing well, I can see why you were confused." He paused, "No, he's a petaq."

"A what?" asked Rose confused.

"You know, a whore, prostitute," he explained.

Rose was stunned. "No, that cant be right, he wouldn't."

But the Doctor chimed in "This is Jack we are talking about can you honestly say he wouldn't do that, particularly if the money was good enough."

"Oh the money is great." their new friend confirmed "He's the highest priced petaq on the planet! He must bring in 100 times what our highest paid pop star earns."

"We have to go see him Doctor," cried Rose. "Well at least you have to. We need to know if it's our Jack and whether it is or isn't him you need to talk him into giving up prostitution, it's not right."

Privately the Doctor agreed, he didn't like the fact that Jack was doing this. But Jack had always loved sex and he might even consider this his ideal job.

"We need to call that number and arrange to see him," Rose demanded.

"I don't think it'll be that simple," warned their friend, "petaq don't accept visitors. You're not going to get anywhere near him unless you book in as a client. And you have to pay in advance so unless you have 100,000 credits (that's about 1 years wages) you wont get to see him."

Sighing and inwardly conceding defeat the Doctor accepted that he would have to go see Jack for Rose's sake. He shuddered. Feigning optimism, he declared brightly, "Then that's what we'll have to do. Money isn't a problem." As an afterthought he added, "Is there any other information you know about him ?"

Their friend thought for a moment. "Well not much, there is one thing but its only a rumour. He's supposed to have murdered over 250 people."


	3. A Dissatisfied Customer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I should note that in this story the Doctor knows that Jack was resurrected on Satellite 5 and ran from him, but he has not realised that Jack is immortal.

A week later found the Doctor entering the Diamond Pleasure Palace. He had paid double for an early booking. He was welcomed and taken through to a large suite. The Doctor waited in the central room, a sumptuous chamber with an extra large canopied bed. After a couple of minutes Jack entered. He was richly dressed, wearing an ornate floor length robe, his hair loose and falling to his waist. A pair of gold bracelets adorned his arms.

“Welcome, my Lord," he stated with an easy smile. “Would you care for some refreshment before we commence ? We have the finest wines to choose from or I could order anything else you desire.”

The minute that he had approached the building the Doctor had been able to feel Jack. There was absolutely no doubt now that this was Jack after the Game Station. He screamed wrongness to the Doctor's senses, and he had to clamp down on his desire to flee.

“Thank you, that wont be necessary,” the Doctor replied. “I'm here because I want to talk to you.”

Jack was puzzled. “Why would you want to do that. What could you possibly want to ask me about ?” He smiled again and moved closer. “There are far more interesting things that we could do.” With that, he approached the Doctor and attempted to kiss him.

The Doctor pushed him away violently. “No, don't do that,” he cried. His reaction to the proximity of a man who had been killed and resurrected against all the laws of nature was too strong for him to control.

Jack backed off immediately. “My apologies,” he said. “Please, tell me what you would like me to do.”

“Just sit down and listen,” the Doctor requested.

Jack sat on the bed, a suggestive smile on his face.

“Still the same old Jack, I see,” remarked the Doctor dryly.

Jack was taken aback. “I'm sorry, have we met? I'm afraid I don't remember you.”

The Doctor took the plunge, all the while wishing he was anywhere else. “It's me, Jack, I've regenerated.”

“Doctor?” Jack breathed in shock.

“Yes,” the Doctor admitted.

For months when he was trapped on the Game Station, and after that on Earth itself Jack had held onto his belief in the Doctor and hoped for rescue. When he had first come to Nirvana he had still had faith that the Doctor would eventually find him. That hope had been dimmed by the passage of years and decades and was now only a fragile ember barely felt. In truth he had no longer expected the Doctor to come for him.

The Doctor's unexpected appearance now fanned that ember into flame but Jack quashed it hurriedly. He was terrified that this was some cruel trick and couldn't afford to allow that hope to germinate only to be cruelly ripped away.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

The Doctor explained briefly. “Rose and I were staying at the Sundora Palace Hotel and we saw your advert. She was desperate to come and see you but since we couldn't be sure if you were Jack before or after we met you I came alone.”

Jack's heart sank, he had almost allowed himself to hope that the Doctor had discovered that he was alive and come after him “So it was just a coincidence," he whispered, “you didn't come to Nirvana looking for me?”

“That's right,” the Doctor admitted.

Jack tried not to lose all his hope, at least the Doctor was here now. But what the Doctor said next practically broke his heart.

“I heard that you murdered 250 people.”

Jack had spent the whole time he travelled with the Doctor trying to show him that he was a good person who could be trusted. He had saved the Doctor and Rose's life on more than one occasion, loved them and, he'd thought, been loved by them. He had given his life willingly to buy the Doctor time to fight the Daleks.

But now the Doctor seemed to believe that he was a murderer. In all the fantasies Jack had ever had about a reunion with the Doctor, and there had been a lot, that had never been an issue. Apologies for leaving him behind, yes, explanations that they thought him dead, yes and happiness that they had found him again, yes. But had the months they'd spent together meant nothing? Did the Doctor have such a low opinion of Jack that he would believe that of him?

So Jack answered curtly “I was convicted.” All the while willing the Doctor to show some faith and say that he didn't believe it.

But the Doctor just continued questioning. “On what grounds.”

“I confessed,” Jack admitted with shame.

“I see,” murmured the Doctor darkly, interpreting Jack's shame as an admission of guilt. And, in the interests of getting away from Jack and his wrongness as quickly as possible, changed the subject abruptly. “Rose and I both think you should give up this profession. It's degrading and beneath you. You can do better than this, Jack.”

Jack was stunned. How could the doctor taunt him like this. “Are you mad,” Jack shouted, raising his arms so that the sleeves of the robe slipped back to show his bracelets. “I can't just walk out of here.”

“I guess it would be too difficult to give up the vast amounts of money you charge,” the Doctor said scathingly.

“I'll go away with you!” Jack cried. “Fetch the TARDIS and take me away from here.”

But the Doctor refused. “No, I won't have you on my TARDIS. You can't travel with us again.”

As that faint ember of hope finally died forever, Jack demanded the answers that had plagued him for over 100 years. “Why not? And why did you abandon me? You didn't even come back for my body!”

The revulsion he felt for Jack and the guilt he was trying to deny made the Doctor cruel and he pulled no punches. “I knew you weren't dead, Jack. I left you deliberately. You are WRONG Jack, an abomination. You make my skin crawl and I can barely stand to look at you. Even if you weren't a murderer I couldn't let you on board again. The TARDIS would have the same reaction I do.”

At this, Jack's world imploded. Throughout the years he had held on to the fact that there had been a time when he was loved, that he was worthy of love. The Doctor's words had just shattered that belief. No one would deliberately abandon someone who they loved, or even a friend, to the nightmare that was the Game Station after the Daleks had devastated it.

The small area of his heart that he had clung to for comfort in his darkest hours turned to stone. He looked at the ground for a minute while composing his mind. His training enabled him to show no emotion no matter what the provocation, and frankly he didn't want the Doctor to see how much his words had hurt him. “So, not family” he muttered to himself quietly. Just a client like any other. And with that thought he raised his head, smiled at the Doctor and walking forwards said “My Lord, how may I serve you” while pushing the robe from his shoulders so that it pooled on the floor, leaving him clad only in a golden loincloth and the bracelets.

He was a beautiful sight, more filled out than when the Doctor had last seen him but it was all superbly toned musculature, not an ounce of fat. His skin was flawless and glowing with a healthy tan. The long hair gave him an exotic look.

But despite their previous dynamic sexual relationship, the Doctor was appalled. He backed away from Jack holding his hand out to stop him approaching. “Stay away.”

Inwardly Jack started to panic. He had already risked a lot when he shouted at the Doctor, “You have paid for me,” he started, but the Doctor interrupted.

“Even if you weren't a freak of nature that makes my skin crawl, I prefer my lovers a little less...” the Doctor paused, “shop soiled.”

His heart breaking anew but desperate to have the Doctor take what he had paid for Jack tried to tempt him. “You can do anything you want, have me do anything you want. There are NO limits.”

“There's nothing I want from you,” the Doctor declared angrily. “If you wont agree to give up this disgusting life, I have nothing more to say to you.“ With that, the Doctor headed for the door, saying, “I'm asking for a refund.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: The “not family” reference refers to a story I read on Teaspoon where the Doctor and Rose rescue Jack from a prison and say to him “We're family. We will always come for you.” I am ashamed to admit I cant find that story or remember the author to give proper credit.


	4. The Consortium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set 104 years prior to Chapter 1. Note that the WARNINGS kick in here.

Year 200,101

There was no slavery on Nirvana. The planet prided itself on its equality and welcomed visitors of any race, species or other designation. However, unbeknown to the general population, Nirvana practised something that was effectively slavery by a different name. Penal servitude. When criminals on Nirvana were sentenced to life imprisonment they were given over to the Consortium who ran various businesses such as the mines and pleasure houses. These prisoners had no rights and no expectation of surviving the experience to be released. For them life in the Consortium workforce was brutal and often short.

Over time the Consortium grew so large that there were insufficient numbers of prisoners on Nirvana alone to fulfill the requirements for workers. The Consortium solved this problem by buying in life sentence prisoners from other worlds. Most planets couldn't believe their luck when offered money to hand over the lifers instead of having to house and feed them for decades. Needless to say most planetary governments jumped at this with no questions asked. The Consortium was able to pick and choose those they thought would be useful additions to their workforce.

 

In the aftermath of the devastation of Earth in 200,100 the Nirvana convict ship was welcomed with joy by the Earth government. They were desperate for supplies and help with rebuilding the planetary infrastructure. They sold all the convicted life sentence criminals to the Consortium for the normal price but held one up as an unusually valuable prisoner and asked an exorbitant amount of money for him.

 

This prisoner was Jack Harkness, who had been convicted of killing 256 people on Satellite 5 and organising terrorist attacks on Earth itself. During the investigation and trial the “police” service had discovered that Jack could not die and thought that this would be a very useful attribute to the Consortium.

 

Though highly sceptical the Consortium could indeed see the immense value of a man who would not stay dead. However they required proof. They sent five representatives to the Earth prison service for a demonstration.

 

As Jack was brought before them, his hands manacled together in front of him, the Consortium representatives ordered him stripped and examined him in minute detail, looking for scars or other signs of injury. Finding none and being extremely pleased with his good looks they proceeded to watch while his guards manacled his hands to the wall,stretched far apart, and began to flog him with a thick leather whip. This left deep, bloody, wounds across his back and Jack choked back his screams at each stroke.

 

After ten strokes Inchar, the leader of the Consortium  
representatives, ordered the guards to stop. He approached Jack and looked closely at his wounds, digging his fingers into them to make sure there was no trickery involved. As Jack gasped weakly at this treatment Inchar returned to the gallery and gave the order to continue.

 

Ten more strokes and the blood was running in rivers down Jack's back to the floor. But they did not stop. Jack's screams had degenerated into agonised whimpers. After twenty more strokes Jack mercifully lost consciousness. The guards paused to look enquiringly at Inchar but were instructed to continue until the subject died.

 

This took a long time and by the end Jack's back was a mangled mess and the floor was awash with blood. Fortunately he had never regained consciousness.

 

When it was over everyone waited to see what would happen. For twenty minutes nothing did and the Consortium members were becoming irritated, suspecting a trick. But then the wounds started to heal and Jack gasped back into life. He remained slumped against the manacles unable to stand for several minutes as Inchar and his associates crowded round checking his back.

 

They were ecstatic. “It's fantastic, he doesn't even scar!. Can you imagine the type of clients we could use him for? And he suffers, it'd be no good if he didn't suffer. Most clients want to see the effects of their actions.”

 

It didn't take long after that for an agreement to be reached. A fee five hundred times that usually paid for a single prisoner was agreed and Jack was handed over to the Consortium for transport to Nirvana.

 

When Jack was taken onto the Consortium ship, still weak from the earlier death, they put him through standard processing. They fixed his wrists in a machine to attach the bracelets that were the mark of penal servitude on Nirvana. What no one outside the Consortium knew however, was that these bracelets were also powerful neural whips. Any guard could activate them and they would incapacitate a prisoner in seconds. They were also location sensitive so that no prisoner could leave their assigned area without activating them. This made escape effectively impossible.


	5. Repercussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to the year 200,205

As the Doctor left to demand his refund, Jack fell to his knees in despair. He felt as if his heart had been ripped out. All these years he had deluded himself that the Doctor and Rose had left him behind because they thought he was dead, that they HAD loved him. He had even rationalised them leaving his body where it lay by assuming that Time Lords did not honour their dead like humans did. But it had all been a lie. The Doctor had abandoned him deliberately, then and now.

He knew what was going to happen, and with the Doctor abandoning him for the second time there was no way to escape it. A large part of him thought that it didn't matter anyway. He was nothing, had never been worthy of anything, especially love. There was no one who would give a damn what happened to him.

Jack wondered if even he could be bothered to care. All he wanted was for it all to end forever. But he was denied that escape and the pain would be terrible so it was difficult to face that with equanimity.

After what seemed like hours but was actually only twenty minutes, four guards accompanied the Overseer of the Pleasure Palace into the room. She eyed Jack with censure in her gaze. He cowered before her as he knelt. With a sign to a guard the bracelets were activated. Jack couldn't even scream as the neural whip turned every nerve in his body into fire, It was like being dipped in molten lava. He writhed on the floor in agony. The Overseer let this continue for 15 minutes, after which Jack could do nothing but lay there helpless with tears of pain streaking his face.

Deactivating the bracelets, two of the guards hauled Jack upright. The Overseer approached and ran her hand down his cheek. Deceptively gently she said to him. “This isn't like you Jack. You raised your voice to a client and then failed to serve him. Why?”

 

Jack wasn't fooled by the calm demeanor. Just raising his voice to the client would bring a severe penalty and if the Doctor had really asked for a refund he didn't want to imagine what the punishment would be.

“You know you can't lie to me Jack. Who was he ? Was he a friend of yours ?”

At that Jack actually laughed bitterly. “A friend! No. I thought he was once, but I was wrong.”

“Then why didn't you serve him”, she asked sharply.

“I tried,” protested Jack, “I offered him anything he wanted but he refused me.”

“Then you are incompetent,” the Overseer said icily. “Your client asked for a refund which we have of course given to him. We will also give him a vid of part of your punishment to show that we take such things very seriously.”

Jack cringed as he heard this. So the Doctor had actually done it, he had asked for a refund. That was just about the worst thing that could happen for someone working in the pleasure palaces. Jack had tried to refuse a client once and the outcome of that had been far from pretty. Shouting at a client was nothing compared to either of those, but even so it was unlikely that they'd ignore it.

“But first things first. You do know the penalty for answering back to a client ?,” asked the Overseer.

“Yes,” hissed Jack. And of course he had known at the time that raising his voice would lead to this, but he'd been so incensed at the Doctor's taunting that he couldn't help himself. It wasn't as if it would matter to him in the long run after all.

The Overseer looked over at the four guards and ordered calmly, “Cut out his tongue.”

The two who were holding Jack up tightened their hold. A third came up behind him and grabbed him by his long hair, yanking his head back. The fourth guard approached him from the front holding a fine loop of wire.

Minutes later they released Jack and he fell to the floor, blood pouring from his mouth. He was semi-conscious but heard the Overseer say “And for failing your client 30 days retraining.”


	6. The Vid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the warnings.

An hour later found Jack standing alone in the centre of a large, freezing cold cell. He was weak with shock (both physical and mental) and covered in blood but just managing to stand. The cell was bare except for a camera mounted high on the wall. I hope you enjoy this Doctor, he thought bitterly.

The cell door swung open and ten burly guards entered. They carried a variety of primitive weapons, mainly iron bars and thick metal chains. “We've waited a long time for this,” they taunted, but as Jack couldn't speak he gave no reply. He knew that they were frustrated that he had been a model prisoner for decades so they had had no chance to “play” with him. They were going to make up for lost time over the next 30 days.

Jack made no move to defend himself. He knew it was pointless. He managed to stay standing for the first few blows but then a particularly vicious hit with an iron bar shattered his left leg and he collapsed to the ground. That didn't slow the guards down and they laid into him from all sides until he was a mass of bloody wounds and broken bones.

The chief guard called a halt to the beating eventually. “Now its time for the real fun,” he snarled. Jack was still conscious as they stripped the thin loincloth from him and proceeded to take turns using his body in any depraved way they wanted.

After all the guards had had their turn they dropped Jack to the floor and left him alone in the cell. It took him 20 hours to die.

*****************************************

When the Doctor returned to the hotel he was still angry. He couldn't believe that Jack had refused point blank to give up his life of prostitution. He obviously couldn't tell Rose that this was their Jack. She would insist on taking him with them in the TARDIS and no way was the Doctor willing to do that. All the reasons for abandoning him on the Game Station still held, plus more. Better to say that this was Jack before he met them and the whole thing was a scam.

Hearing this Rose was devastated. She had had such belief that this was their Jack it was like losing him all over again. The Doctor decided they had better leave the next day to avoid any further reminders of Jack's presence on the planet.

As he and Rose were packing up their things the next morning, a maid came to the door with a package from the Diamond Pleasure Palace. With it came a note, “We at the Diamond Pleasure Palace hope that you accept this token of our regret at the unfortunate experience you had at our establishment.” The Doctor tossed it unopened on the desk and didn't bother to take it with them when they left.


	7. Training and Retraining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starts 104 years before Chapter 1

Year 200,101

Initially Jack's training was the same as every other worker assigned to the Pleasure Palaces. The management did not want their merchandise damaged so the method of discipline was strictly through the bracelets. These caused intense pain with no damage or scarring to the prisoner. What the management also knew from long experience was that the first few rapes were the ones that mattered. After dozens the psychological impact on the prisoner was much diminished. So the training started with four days of continuous assault before “client scenarios” were enacted with guards playing the part of the clients. Any failure to please the “client” would be severely punished with the bracelets until the “client's” wishes were fulfilled. After a month of this training the workers were assigned real clients. By this time all the new prisoners were able to serve their clients with a smile and leave them believing that everything they did was entirely consensual and fantastic for both parties.

Having come from the Earth prison where he had been forced to admit publicly to the murder of 256 people and organising terrorism, Jack was already broken. He had lost all his self respect in the prison on Earth by confessing to something he had not done, rationalising his compliance in the end by the fact that no one he cared about would ever know. He fought the training for a while but he no longer had it in him to fight for long. At the end of the month Jack was also serving clients obediently and with a smile.

After six months the management were sufficiently confident of Jack that they implemented their long term plan for him. He was to serve a particular subset of clients who wanted to use violence and cause suffering and injury. These clients were usually limited to using whores at the end of their useful lifetimes, and such opportunities were rare. In Jack's case they could do anything they wanted and it would cause no long term damage so he could be used in that way over and over again. There would be no limits. The only snag was in getting him to cooperate. They needed him to treat the client the way the client wanted, with fear when they wanted to terrify, with suffering when they wanted that, or even by begging for more pain when they wanted to think he enjoyed it.

The aim of training was to bring the prisoner into line so they would fulfill all their clients wishes without disruption, particularly to the client. In Jack's case the treatment he would receive from the clients themselves would be so traumatic that the training itself had to be utterly brutal. Fortunately (for the trainers) there was a lot you could do to a man who did not stay dead and after the extra two months training period for the special clients this policy worked very well on Jack.

The Pleasure Palace management soon realised that they had to limit the number of clients, not only because they didn't want to saturate the market, but also because they learned during Jack's training that too many deaths in a short time slowed his rate of healing and recovery. An eventual compromise of one client per week was chosen. The rest of Jack's time was devoted to recovery and fitness, as that was something that carried over between deaths.

From this time on Jack's life was hell. He held onto his sanity by holding on to the happy times in his life, largely the times with Rose and the Doctor.

Year 200,205

For over 100 years he had endured that life. But now the Doctor had destroyed the delicate balance that Jack had found. Everything he had clung to had been snatched away and he had been sentenced to a repeat of his earlier training for the violent clients. The beating and rapes they had sent on a vid to the Doctor were nothing, just a softening up. He suffered that much frequently with his usual clients.

But things did not turn out the way the management expected. Instead of resuming his previous good behaviour after the intensive retraining, Jack became completely unresponsive. He obeyed orders like an automaton but showed none of the reactions that clients would want. Not pain, suffering or pleasure. The spark had gone from him.

The management intensified the retraining sessions with Jack but nothing worked. It was as if he had turned off. He was now essentially useless to them in the Pleasure Palaces. No client wanted an unresponsive piece of meat to fuck or abuse. In the end they gave up and decided to hold an auction to sell him on.


	8. Martha Jones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst continues.

Year 200,206

Many groups and individuals were interested in buying an immortal man. They varied from ultra rich individuals who wanted their own personal indestructible pleasure slave to massive industrial conglomerates with no conscience that had research projects where such a man would be invaluable.

The eventual winner, paying 900 million credits, was the Astratech Research Corporation (ARC) who specialised in weapons systems and temporal mechanics.

Jack was transferred to ARC jurisdiction 8 months after the Doctor visited Nirvana and was given the designation, Subject A. As a gesture of goodwill the Consortium left the bracelets in place and gave the controls to the ARC representatives.

30 years later (year 200,236)

 

Martha Jones ran. She had escaped the guards who had delivered her to the research station but was lost in the corridors and to be honest had no clear goal in mind. The Doctor and the TARDIS were back on a different planet and had no idea what had happened to her.

Predictably she didn't get far before the guards cornered her again. Handcuffing her and marching her to the cell block they threw her into a vacant cell violently. She crashed roughly to the floor unable to save herself because of the handcuffs. As they left she rolled to her knees and sat up gingerly. She was in a bare cell, with bars along the front wall allowing her to see a long way down the cell block. It was almost empty, the only other current inmate being a man with short, dark hair in a cell diagonally opposite hers. He was lying on the floor unmoving. She shouted to him asking what this place was but he didn't react. Eventually she gave up and slept on the narrow bench in the cell.

After several hours she was woken by a loud gasp from the opposite cell. She looked up and saw that the man had moved. She called to him frantically. “Hey, can you tell me where we are, what this place is ? What do these people want with us?”

The man turned towards her, saying nothing, but she stepped back in shock as she saw his face. His eyes were dead. He gazed at her for a few seconds then turned away. He retreated to the far corner of his cell, hugged his knees and proceeded to ignore her.

It was several hours before the guards came back for her, and in the whole time the man never moved again.

Martha was escorted to a room with complex machinery. They removed the handcuffs but to her horror she was strapped down onto a table at the centre of the main machine. She watched in terror as a technician threw a switch which turned the machine on. Expecting something horrible to happen Martha screamed but soon sagged in relief as all the machine did was beep several times.

“It's confirmed” the technician stated, “she's infused with temporal energy, just like Subject A”.

It had been a very welcome but unexpected bonus for ARC that the subject they had purchased to be used in advanced weapons testing had also turned out to be saturated with temporal energy. He had been used in their attempts to create a space/time rift in the lab. The weapons techs were not willing to give up their experimental subject so easily, so a time share agreement was reached between the two. Subject A was kept in the temporal mechanics cell block but used by weapons testing department whenever he was available.

The following day, the guards came for Martha and Subject A. She tried to fight them but the man obeyed every command he was given instantly barely raising his eyes from the floor at any time. They were taken to a room with two surgical beds attached by a complex array of machinery to a central column. Each of them was securely strapped to a bed with restraints at neck, wrists and ankles. This time when the machine was turned on it hurt like hell. Martha screamed till her voice was hoarse and then passed into blessed unconsciousness. The man never uttered a sound.

When Martha awoke she was back in her cell lying on the floor. She hurt all over but seemed to have no obvious injuries. She looked over at her fellow prisoner. He seemed fine but was back huddled in his corner again.

She tried again to talk to him. “What was that about, do you know what they are doing?” She got no response and would have thought that the TARDIS translation circuits weren't working except that she could understand the guards perfectly well and they could understand her.

They took the other prisoner away far more often than they did her. Too often though she was dragged along to the room with the machine as he walked alongside. As they were both strapped down and the machines activated Martha noticed that the strange apparition in the air that the machine generated was getting significantly bigger and (for the lack of a more scientific term) more swirly.

A week had gone by with much the same routine. But that night Martha was woken by laughter from the opposite cell. She opened her eyes to see three guards, one just outside the cell, and two inside with the prisoner. One of the guards was saying, “Come on you know what to do” and the man responded by kneeling in front of him and undoing the guard's belt. Martha lay very still and averted her eyes at this point, trying very hard not to draw attention to herself. As things heated up in the other cell she lay petrified. The first guard gave a loud groan then moved away from the prisoner. She heard the second guard order him to strip and lean with his hands against the wall. “Get your legs apart”, the guard snarled. Then there was a litany of grunts, groans and curses that seemed to go on forever. Eventually the guards left, laughing, and when Martha dared look again the man was back huddled in his corner, unmoving.

Oh God Doctor, you've got to come for me soon, thought Martha desperately.

After that things went on as usual for the next several days. Then came one day where the guards seemed unusually happy. Subject A on the other hand was unusually jittery, pacing his cell and actually showing some emotion for once; fear.

That night, before Martha was asleep, five guards came down the corridor. Terrified Martha shrank back in her cell but the guards ignored her and converged on the other prisoner. To her shame Martha felt nothing but relief at this. As the guards had entered the corridor the prisoner's whole demeanor had changed. Gone were the jitteriness and fear and instead he appeared perfectly at ease. He walked calmly down the corridor with the guards and out of sight.


	9. Making Friends

That night would haunt Martha for years. The guards were clearly having a party which, though out of sight, was within her hearing. For the whole night the main part of their entertainment seemed to be abusing the prisoner. She could hear catcalls and obscenities shouted at him, along with the sounds of blows and other physical acts of violence. She didn't sleep at all, just huddled on her bench hoping that they'd stop their abuse and bring him back, but at the same time scared that if they did they'd take her instead.

 

Eventually they dragged the unconscious body of her fellow prisoner back to his cell. He was naked, covered in blood, and had been battered beyond belief. Martha could barely contain her shock. As they tossed him into his cell callously, her instincts as a doctor came to the fore. She banged on the bars of her cell, yelling at the guards. “Let me help him, I'm a doctor.”

They just laughed at her, saying “That's the last thing he needs.”

But Martha didn't give up. “At least let me clean his wounds.”

One of the guards agreed with a laugh, “I guess cleaning him up would be useful.”

So, 10 minutes later, Martha was moved to the other prisoner's cell and given some water and a cloth. With trepidation, Martha washed off the worst of the blood, in order to check the major wounds. Fortunately there was nothing life threatening, though he had been systematically beaten. His face was barely recognisable, his torso slashed and heavily bruised. Martha hesitated when she got to his legs, her expression darkening as she saw the blood and semen that encrusted them.

As she was cleaning the blood from his chest, he woke up. Understandably, he panicked, and, yanking himself away from her, he threw himself to the back of his cell. “

It's OK, said Martha softly, “I'm just trying to clean you up.” She held up the cloth, “look”. She shuffled closer to him slowly, but stopped at the terrified expression on his face. “It's all right, I'm a prisoner just like you, you know that don't you? I'm not going to hurt you. I'm a doctor.”

It was like calming a frightened animal, but eventually he allowed her to get close, and to continue to wash away the blood. Martha talked to him while she did it, more to keep him calm than in the expectation of an answer. After all, she had never heard him utter a word. It was a huge surprise when he said “Why are you helping me?”

“You can talk”, she cried. “Why did you never answer me before?”

“I didn't have a reason to” he said hesitantly.

“I'm Martha, what's your name?”

He didn't answer immediately, appearing lost in thought. Finally he whispered, “I remember now, my name was Jack.” It had been 30 years since anyone had called him anything but Subject A.

As Martha continued to clean him up, she asked hesitantly, “Why don't you fight back ? Why do you let them do that to you, without trying to defend yourself?”

“I can't,” he replied with despair.

“But you have to, they have to realise they can't do that.”

“But they can do it!” he practically shouted at her, “And I'm a petaq, that's what I'm supposed to do.”

“Why did the guards do that tonight ?”, she asked him, “there seemed to be something going on all day.”

Jack smiled wryly saying simply, “it's christmas, that was their party.”

Martha was so shocked, she lapsed back into silence.

Eventually, after she had finished washing him, she asked him what a petaq was. She didn't like the answer.

“I have this friend she told him quietly. He'll come for me, and when he does I'll make sure he rescues you as well.”

A few hours later the guards came to take Jack. They moved Martha back to her cell. When Jack returned there were no signs of any wounds or bruises to his body at all.


	10. A Friend in Need

Over the next several days Martha had no real chance to talk to Jack. The only time they were not confined in separate cells was when Jack was taken away, or both of them were taken to the machine room. Although Martha tried to talk to him across the corridor, he never replied. However she did see him shooting her a few surreptitious glances, usually accompanied by a confused expression.

 

Everything changed one day, when the guards decided to “play” with Martha instead of Jack. Jack was not in his cell, having been taken away several hours previously. Three guards approached her cell, two of them she recognised as those who had assaulted Jack in his cell. In panic, she backed away as far as she could, searching around desperately for anything that could be used as a weapon. She wasn't going to be like Jack, she was going to fight them! Of course there was nothing she could use. The sleeping bench was fixed firmly to the wall, as were all the other features of the cell. So unarmed it would be then.

 

It was hopeless of course, two of the guards had her pinned against the wall in seconds. She struggled violently, yelling and screaming, but they were trained professionals and even the moves she had learned travelling with the Doctor were useless against them. In the distance she saw more guards approaching. They were bringing Jack back to his cell. She knew there would be no help from him though. He never disobeyed orders, even when they were abusing him.

 

Jack's guards ordered him to a stop outside his cell, as they unlocked it. He obeyed, his eyes downcast as usual, even though he couldn't have failed to notice the fracas from Martha's cell. As he was ordered to enter his cell he started to obey but suddenly spun around and, grabbing the nearest guard, snapped his neck. Before his other two guards could get over their shock, he had grabbed each of them, and banged their heads together so hard he may well have cracked their skulls. Grabbing the gun off one of them, he shot each of the three guards in Martha's cell before they even had a chance to turn around. Two fell dead, but one was only wounded and hit the alarm button on his belt.

 

The effect on Jack was instantaneous. He went down as if poleaxed, with a wordless scream, dropping the gun as he fell. Martha watched in horror as he writhed in agony, and another eight guards pounded down the corridor and surrounded both Jack and her.

 

Needless to say, they weren't happy. Martha was backhanded in the face, and thrown face down on the floor of her cell, as they removed the dead and wounded guards. They slammed the cell door and locked it, before turning their attention to Jack.

 

He still lay where he had fallen, oblivious to anything except pain. “You're going to regret this, freak” snarled one of the guards, kicking him in the face. “Have you forgotten what we can do to you!”

 

They left Jack laying in the corridor while they tended the wounded guards. The alarms remained shrieking as they did so. Martha rushed to the front of her cell crying and calling Jack's name. He gave no response.

 

After half an hour the alarms were suddenly silenced. The moment they stopped, Jack ceased his agonised convulsions and lay in a quivering heap. By this time Martha's sobs had subsided a little. Again she cried out to him.

 

“Take Subject A to level 2” came the order over the tannoy. The two guards who remained in the corridor picked Jack up by the arms and dragged him away.


	11. The Price of Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING. Explicit Violence. I really mean it!

They were left alone all that night, Jack in a high security cell on level 2, and Martha in her usual cell. Martha spent the whole night worrying about Jack.

 

The next morning a man Martha had never seen before strode down the corridor towards her cell. He was flanked by four guards. Judging by his ornate uniform, this man was of a higher rank than the others. He stopped outside her cell and regarded her curiously. “You must be something special. In all the years he has been here, Subject A has never caused any trouble. Yet he kills four men, and severely injures two more, just to save you from an inconsequential encounter with my guards.”

 

Martha was incensed. “That was not going to be inconsequential ! And he knew it. He did a brave and honourable thing, and I will always be grateful to him for that.”

 

The guard captain smirked. “Didn't you ever think that there is a reason he is totally obedient, and doesn't fight back when my guards use him? The punishment is far far worse than what they do. And you are going to witness every moment of this one.”

 

With that, the guard Captain ordered Martha to be brought out of her cell and taken to the weapons testing section. There she was led into a room containing a surgical table surrounded by cabinets containing a variety of high tech weapons. Martha was escorted by two guards into an observation booth. She could see and hear everything that happened in the main room, but couldn't interfere.

 

Minutes later, Jack was dragged into the room and over to the table. He was strapped down outstretched, with wrists and ankles secured to the four corners of the table.

 

They started by blinding him.

 

They continued by choosing a weapon from the cabinets, and using it on low power. This caused intense burns instead of disintegration.

 

Martha screamed and cried, begging them to stop, to do what they wanted with her but to leave Jack alone. She was totally ignored. Her screams and sobs mingled with Jack's.

 

They worked their way down Jack's arms, his chest, abdomen and legs with the weapon, cutting his clothes out of the way as they went. For variety, they used a surgical scalpel to slice long cuts across the areas that weren't burned.

 

After several hours, finally running out of accessible skin to ravage, they stabbed Jack in the abdomen with the scalpel, pulling it out and throwing it aside.

 

The guard captain then ordered that Jack and Martha be returned to Jack's new cell on level 2, and locked in together. The new cell was very different to their old ones. It was more like a dungeon. Dark, with solid walls rather than bars, and the only light from a small window into the corridor.

 

Martha was still sobbing as they were left there. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Why did you help me? I wasn't worth this.”

 

Amazingly, Jack managed to reply. “You were kind, and helped me. No one has done that for as long as I can remember.” He reached out an arm towards her voice, and she clung onto his hand. “I couldn't stand by and do nothing while the guards hurt you,” he continued weakly.

 

Martha's crying increased. “But you knew that they'd torture you. You shouldn't have helped me.”

 

Unable to cry, the blood from his eyes ran down Jack's face like tears. “It will be all right,” he gasped, but was cut off as he coughed up blood.

 

“How can it be all right?” asked Martha, not really expecting a reply.

 

“Kill me, please.” Jack managed to choke out.

 

“I can't do that!” was Martha's first horrified response. But then she really thought about it. As a doctor, Martha knew that, even if Jack didn't die from his other injuries, the stab wound to his abdomen would kill him slowly, if left untreated. And she had nothing with which to treat him. Her initial shock at his request was tempered by the obvious conclusion that it would be a blessing. He was in agony from the charred flesh of his burns, his ruined eyes could never be healed and, if she did nothing, he was going to die a horribly slow death.

 

If she did as he asked, she could spare him a lot of pain and he would be free of this awful existence. There wasn't really a choice. She owed him that.

 

She bent down and gently kissed him. “Thank you” she whispered, “I'll never forget what you did.” She then grasped his neck and squeezed. He didn't struggle.


	12. Increased Understanding

Martha knelt by Jack's body for an hour, sobbing her heart out. She felt sick and her mind was railing against the fact that he had essentially been tortured to death for helping her. And, even though it was what he wished, nothing could change the fact that in the end she had murdered him herself. She had never killed before, and to have to do that to someone who was becoming a friend, even as an act of mercy, was soul destroying. She eventually cried herself to sleep, still holding his hand.

 

She was woken by a loud gasp and a jerk as Jack surged back to life. Terrified she screamed, yanked her hand away, and ran to the furthest corner of the cell. There she turned and regarded him with horror. “But you were dead! What the hell is going on, was this all some kind of trick?”

 

“It's no trick,” Jack told her wearily. “It's my curse. I can die but I never stay dead.”

Martha stared at him and shouted. “So you knew you'd come back to life no matter what they did. Why the hell didn't you tell me! Do you know what I went through thinking you were dying and having to actually kill you?”

 

Jack looked down, “I would have if I'd had the chance after the fight. Before that you didn't really need to know.” He trailed off then looked her straight in the eyes and said bitterly, “Being a freak isn't something I broadcast, and it tends to make people treat me as if it doesn't matter what happens to me.” With that Jack dragged himself into a corner, obviously still weak and in pain. He sat, head down, rocking himself to and fro and ignored her.

 

Time passed and Jack continued to ignore her. This gave Martha time to process everything that had happened. She had been stunned by his return to life and that had made her react without thinking. He clearly now thought that she dismissed what he had done for her as insignificant, because it could never have killed him. As she thought through the ramifications of his situation she realised that, far from diminishing the sacrifice he had made for her, the exact opposite was true. He had known that helping her would lead to punishment and, unlike any other person, he knew that there were no limits to the torment the guards could put him through. They could do whatever they wanted, in the knowledge that their experimental subject would still be usable afterwards. As she had witnessed, he had clearly suffered the pain and agony of the torture. And to know that there could be no escape into death (at least not permanently) was unimaginable.

 

Chastened, she approached Jack slowly. “Jack, I'm so sorry. You went through all that for me and all I could do was yell at you for not explaining your condition. I was just surprised.” She reached out to try to look at his face. “Let me check you over. Are your eyes all right now? What about the burns?”

 

Hesitantly, he uncurled and let her look. To her amazement he was completely healed, no sign of injury remained at all.

 

“I heal when I die,” he explained. “It doesn't matter what they do, it will be OK after I die.”

 

“But you still look as if you're in pain. Does it still hurt?” Martha questioned.

 

“There are residual after effects for a while. But I'll be back to normal soon,” he assured her.

 

“What happened, Jack, when you fought the guards earlier? None of them laid a hand on you but you collapsed. Why?”

 

He grimaced and raised his arms, showing her the only things he wore: the bracelets. “These are neural whips. They react to a direct transmitted command to activate, or to the absence of a dampening signal. When the alarm went off the dampening field was automatically switched off, and the bracelets activated. For the same reason I can't leave this building.”

 

“So, if you fight back at any time, or refuse an order, they set these off?”

 

Jack nodded.

 

“Well, I see why you said you can't fight back,” Martha muttered angrily.

 

Moving on to practical matters, Martha realised that he had no clothes, and she had nothing she could realistically lend him. It was very cold in the cell. She therefore sat as close to him as she could get, and wrapped an arm around him. She could feel him trembling, but wasn't sure if that was due to shock, cold, or fear of being so close to another person.

 

Trying to give him some hope for the future, she told him again. “My friend will be looking for me, he'll be here soon and he'll take us both out of here.”

 

“How would he do that?,” Jack asked, “it wont be easy for anyone to break in here, never mind out again.”

 

“Oh, the Doctor wont have any problem with that,” she assured him.

 

Jack practically leapt away from her when she said that. “The Doctor! Your friend is the Doctor!”

 

Surprised by his reaction, Martha could only say “Yes, do you know him?”

 

“Oh yes,” Jack replied, his tone laced with bitterness. “He may come for you, though you really shouldn't count on it, but there is no way he'd ever rescue me from here.”

 

Stung, Martha retorted, “Of course he'll come for me. He wouldn't abandon me. I'm his companion, I travel with him.”

 

“I thought that once. But he abandoned me. Twice ! And before you ask, yes I was his companion and travelled with him. It's his fault I'm immortal.”


	13. Jack's Story

When Martha had recovered from her shock, and Jack had calmed down enough to return to her side, so they could both stay warm, they started to talk again. Martha asked Jack to tell her how the Doctor had abandoned him, and how he had ended up on the research station.

Huddling close to Martha for warmth, Jack began his story.

 

“The Doctor, Rose and I were on the Game Station, a Satellite orbiting Earth. The Daleks were attacking the Satellite, and Earth itself, and the Doctor asked me to hold them off long enough for him to build a weapon to destroy them. I did my best. I organised the people on the station to fight, and we slowed them down a little. But they were all killed.”

 

Even after all the years, Jack still felt guilty about that.

 

“He sent Rose home to safety in the TARDIS, but everyone else died. I could have left at any time, using my vortex manipulator, but I wanted to buy him as much time as I could. I was the last man standing, but they got me eventually. That was my first death. You can imagine my confusion when I woke up again. I don't know how it happened, but it had to be something to do with the Doctor, and it's been happening ever since.”

 

“And did you buy him enough time?” Martha asked.

“I don't know,” Jack replied, “the weapon was never used but, when I revived, the Daleks were all just piles of dust. I never found out what happened.”

 

It was difficult for Jack to discuss his heartbreak at seeing the TARDIS disappear before his eyes, but he forced himself on.

 

“When I got back to the TARDIS, it was already leaving. They hadn't even checked to see if I was alive. I waited for them, not that I had much choice, since the Dalek blast had fried my vortex manipulator, and they had destroyed all the communications electronics on the station. I thought the Doctor and Rose would come back, at least to retrieve my body if they thought me dead, but they didn't come.”

 

“How long did you wait?” asked Martha tentatively.

 

“Four months,” Jack replied. “It took that long for Earth to send a shuttle up to check. For the whole time, I was trapped on the top five floors. The Daleks had opened the levels below that to space. The automatic environmental systems up there still worked, so there was air and heating. And there was plenty of water in a bathroom, but there was no food. Well, unless you count the bodies. The Daleks had turned to dust but the humans were still there.”

 

“Oh god,” gasped Martha, “tell me you didn't eat them.”

 

Jack smiled wryly, “No I didn't. I spaced the bodies in the first couple of days. Though, if I hadn't got rid of them, later on I think I might have eaten them.”

 

“So how did you survive?” Martha asked.

 

Jack just looked at her. “You're a doctor Martha, you must have some idea how long it takes a human to starve to death. Do the maths.”

 

She thought for a minute, “about 6 weeks,” she said. Then, looking horrified, she carried on, “but you were there for 4 months, which is about 17 weeks,” she trailed off.

 

“That's right,” Jack confirmed. “I starved twice, and was well on my way to a third time when the Earth shuttle arrived. I was pathetically grateful to them for getting me off the satellite. It never occurred to me that things would actually get worse.”

 

It was only the dimming that 135 years gives a memory that allowed Jack to talk so calmly about events that had been utter hell to live through at the time. Heartbroken, betrayed, losing hope of the Doctor returning for him, and dying slowly, he had been glad for the end the first time he starved. Finding himself resurrected again afterwards had plunged him into the depths of despair.

 

Martha was the only person he had told his story to, ever. He was finding it strangely cathartic. It was good to know that someone cared enough to listen, and that there was someone else who knew what had happened to him.

 

“The Earth government had blamed the entire Dalek attack on terrorists, including the massacre of everyone on Satellite 5. The fact that no Daleks remained, after they were defeated, backed that up.

No one believed me when I told them what had happened. All the records on the Satellite were destroyed during the battle, so I had no evidence. In the end I don't think they believed it themselves, but they accused me of killing all 256 people on Satellite 5 and organising terrorist attacks on Earth. It was convenient for them to have a scapegoat, and a conviction would make them look good to the general public. The only thing they needed was some evidence.”

 

“But there was no evidence,” Martha interjected, “because you didn't do it.”

 

“No,” Jack agreed, “so they decided to go for a confession in a live broadcast.”

 

“But there's no way you would have agreed to do that.”

 

“You'd think that wouldn't you,” agreed Jack. "But they were very persuasive. During one of the interrogation sessions they went too far, and discovered that I couldn't stay dead. After that it was only a matter of wearing me down. You've seen the type of thing this curse allows. Could you resist that for long? I did as they wanted in the end, and confessed live on TV. They convicted me very quickly after that, and I was sentenced to life imprisonment (they could hardly execute me for it). But at least they left me alone after that. It was very peaceful.”

 

To Martha's horror, Jack smiled wistfully when talking about being locked up for life. What kind of a life had he led since then, that he looked back on that as a pleasant interlude?

 

Jack shook his head. “It didn't last though,” he explained. “Earth was a mess, the Daleks did a lot of damage. So when the Consortium from Nirvana came, offering to buy up life prisoners, they didn't hesitate. Didn't ask what they wanted them for either. They got a lot for me. Not dying was a big selling point.”

 

“And what did they want the prisoners for?” asked Martha.

 

“Oh the usual. Manual labour, or the Pleasure Palaces. I was assigned to the Pleasure Palaces. That's how I ended up as a petaq.”

 

Even if Martha hadn't already known that Jack had been a prostitute, he was stunningly good looking and she would have guessed they would send him there, rather than for manual labour. “So you were a slave,” she stated.

 

“Oh no,” Jack contradicted, with a grimace. “The Nirvanans would never admit to slavery on their planet. We were criminals sentenced to penal servitude, and this was the service.”

 

Glossing over his time as a whore (there were things Martha definitely did not need to know), Jack skipped 104 years, to the day when the Doctor showed up as his client.

 

“The Doctor booked me. I didn't know who he was at first because he'd regenerated.”

 

“He'd what ?” asked Martha.

 

“Regenerated. That's what Time Lord's do when they die. They essentially get a new body.” Jack explained. “So they look completely different.”

 

“Right, so you didn't recognise him.”

 

“No,” Jack confirmed. “When I realised, I thought that finally he'd come for me. I'd always convinced myself that he didn't leave me on purpose, that he must have thought I was dead. But he admitted that he had always known I was alive, and he had abandoned me deliberately because I'd been resurrected. I was wrong, an abomination.”

 

Jack's voice broke at this point, and he clamped fiercely down on his emotions.

 

“He had heard that I was convicted of mass murder, and he seemed to believe it. He never even asked if I was guilty. He refused to get me away in the TARDIS, and the last I saw of him he was demanding a refund. Apparently Rose sent him, but to this day I don't understand why he came just to abandon me again. Or why Rose let him do it.”

 

“They sent him a vid of part of my punishment. But it didn't make any difference, he still left me there.”

 

“Anyway,” he continued. “After that I refused to cooperate, and the Consortium eventually got fed up with me and sold me off to the highest bidder. That was the Astratech Research Corporation and here I am.”

 

Martha was aware that this was the extremely sanitised version of events. Jack hadn't wanted to go into the graphic, gory details of his life, but Martha had seen enough in the few weeks she had known him to know that he was leaving out acres of pain and grief from his story. She honoured that decision by not asking difficult questions. Her main focus anyway was the Doctor, and his treatment of his former companion.

 

“No matter what he did in the past, Jack, I will make sure that he doesn't abandon you again. When he comes to get me, we will take you with us.”

 

Jack shook his head sadly. “I believe you will try, Martha. But the Doctor will not want to do it. He'll leave me behind again, and probably blame me for the rift research they are doing here as well.”

 

“We're family. We will always come for you.” Jack quoted. “That's what the Doctor and Rose said to me once, when they rescued me from a prison. I believed them, but less than two months later I was left behind and they did not come. So forgive me if I lack faith in him. In fact you should be wondering if he'll even come for you!”

 

Martha was wondering, and worrying. It had been weeks. And Jack's story rang true. If the Doctor could do that to him, what was to prevent him doing the same to her.

 

Finally they both fell into an uneasy sleep, snuggled together for warmth.


	14. Escape

The next day the guards came for Jack again. He appeared to be resigned to his fate, and obeyed them meekly. Martha on the other hand, tried to pull him back yelling, “you're not taking him again, leave him alone.”

Jack moved her aside gently. “I killed four of them Martha, one session was never going to be enough.”

This time Martha was not taken to watch.

When they brought him back and threw him in the cell, they activated a force field between them, so that Martha couldn't get close to Jack. She could only watch as he slowly died from his injuries, unable to offer physical comfort or a merciful ending.

This pattern repeated over the next four days. Jack was clearly sinking into a morass of despair, and becoming more and more obviously subservient to the guards in his fragile state. He had lost his ability to throw off his mental state and become calm when the guards came for him, never stopped trembling, and he flinched at any noise or when a guard came near him. Martha was becoming frantic, desperate for the Doctor to hurry up and get them out of the research station. Despite what Jack had told her, she still believed that the Doctor would rescue both of them.

On their sixth night on level 2, they lay close to each other sleeping. Jack was exhausted after his latest session. This time at least the guards had left him some clothes, and, as usual, they allowed Martha close to him after he resurrected. The cell door clicked open quietly, and the Doctor entered. He looked in disapproval at her cell mate (he could feel the wrongness from the moment he left the TARDIS), and then tiptoed quietly towards her, gently shaking her shoulder to wake her up. “Martha it's me. Come on we have to leave.” The Doctor shushed her as she woke and started to talk. “Be quiet we don't want to alert the guards.”

The Doctor pulled her out into the corridor, without waking Jack. Two guards lay unconscious outside the cell. “Come on Martha, the TARDIS is this way.”

Martha baulked, and refused to move. However, she did keep her voice low. “We have to bring Jack too. I'll just wake him up.”

“No!” the Doctor exclaimed in a whisper.

“What do you mean, no! He's a prisoner like me, and we have to take him with us. You don't know what he's done for me.”

“I will not have that man in my TARDIS. You don't know ...”.

He was interrupted by Martha, who stated angrily “and I will not leave without him!”

Unbeknown to them Jack had woken when the Doctor first came into the cell. He was well aware of the Doctor's reaction to him, and not surprised by it, though it cut him deeply. He began to panic as he realised that the promised rescue had arrived but he would not be included. Martha's loyalty to him was a balm to his psyche but he couldn't endanger her by causing a scene with the Doctor that could attract the guards attention. And, although he wouldn't admit it to himself, he couldn't bear the thought of being abandoned for a third time by the Doctor.

So, Jack fled from the Doctor and Martha before the Doctor could drive another stake through his heart. He left the cell quietly while they were arguing, and headed for the research laboratory where he and Martha had been used to create a rift in space/time. He had to hurry, as he knew that as soon as the alarm was sounded his bracelets would activate and he would be helpless.

With trembling hands, he typed in the code that opened the door. The guards had never been careful about hiding it from him. Once inside, he powered up the machinery and prepared it to activate the rift. Since Martha had been included in the experiments the rift had grown very quickly. It was just about big enough now.

Martha and the Doctor had caught sight of Jack as he fled down the corridor. Martha had taken off after him, and the Doctor had chased her. They reached the rift room as Jack pushed the final button. The space/time rift swirled into existence.

“Jack, what are you doing?” called Martha.

“Escaping,” he hissed. He moved to stand in front of the rift.

“You can come with us,” she cried.

“I doubt that,” he said sadly and with one look back at her he jumped.


	15. Confrontation

Seconds after Jack jumped into the rift, the alarms sounded. The Doctor grabbed Martha, and hauled her out of the room. “Run,” he cried, and she did. Guards had just appeared at the end of the corridor when they reached the TARDIS. They shot at the Doctor and Martha, but the Doctor yanked Martha inside without either of them being hit.

 

He rushed over to the console and sent them spinning into the vortex. “There we are then,” he said, “all safe and sound.” As he turned around he was met with Martha's fist, as she decked him. She was trembling with rage.

 

“Are you insane! We are not all safe and sound. Jack isn't safe. He's god knows where. I promised him that you would save us both! He didn't believe me, and I guess he was right all along.” She was sobbing by this point.

 

The Doctor spoke from his position on the floor. “Martha, you don't know that man. He's a convicted mass murderer and a con man, not to mention a sex maniac.”

 

“Convicted murderer yes, guilty no. But of course you didn't stick around long enough to find out if he did it, did you ? You can't really believe he killed all those people on Satellite 5 ?”

 

The Doctor was stunned. “Satellite 5, of course he didn't kill them. That was the Daleks. Are you saying that those were the murders he was convicted of?”

 

“Yes,” yelled Martha, “they forced him to confess because they needed a scapegoat.”

 

The Doctor started to feel sick. He had totally misjudged Jack, but it had never entered his head that the murders people spoke of had occurred over 100 years before. He picked himself off the floor and sank into a chair.

 

Martha continued her tirade, “He told me about you Doctor, about how you abandoned him, not once but twice. And I guess we can make that three times now.”

 

Hoping against hope that what Jack had told her was wrong, she asked, “do you deny it Doctor ? Can you tell me that you didn't abandon him on Satellite 5, after he died for you!”

 

The Doctor shook his head, but couldn't deny the facts. “I had to do it, he'd been resurrected from death. He was unnatural, wrong! I couldn't bear to be near him.”

 

Martha was just getting started in her rant, and had no intention of stopping before she'd told the Doctor exactly what she thought.

 

“You left him in hell Doctor, with no way out. How could you do that to someone who was your friend?” More than a friend she thought, if what she'd read between the lines was true.

 

The Doctor had no answer. What he had done was unconscionable, and he knew it. He fell back into defensive mode. “I'm sorry Martha, but Jack is a grown man, he can look after himself.”

 

“Not where you left him he couldn't,” she yelled at him. “And then when you found him again, and you could have saved him from the Pleasure Palace, you left him again!”

 

The Doctor began to argue now. “Well that's got nothing to do with me. It's not my fault he chose to work as a prostitute. And apparently he was very well paid for it.”

 

Martha was taken aback, “Well paid ? You think he was paid ? And you think he was there voluntarily!”

 

The Doctor's sick feeling was increasing. “Wasn't he ?”

 

“No you idiot!,” she cried. “He was sent there to serve his sentence for his murder conviction.”

 

The Doctor was reeling at the implications of this. If Jack had been a prisoner when he booked him on Nirvana then he couldn't have given up his life of prostitution. A flash of Jack holding up his arms and saying “Are you mad, I can't just walk out of here” came to him and all of a sudden made much more sense. And how had he reacted. The Doctor cringed inwardly at the memory. Guilt was starting to build up inside him.

 

“I didn't realise,” he stuttered, “I really thought that would be Jack's idea of the perfect job.”

 

Martha hit him again at that, knocking the Doctor backwards in his chair. He was going to have a matching pair of black eyes.

 

“Ideal job!” she hissed. “It was without his consent every time Doctor. Does that sound like an ideal job to you?” Martha wasn't finished. “The guards on the research station raped him too. I saw it one time. They knew he'd been a prostitute and it was just a bit of after hours fun for them.”

 

 

She looked down, “And you know what Doctor, the guards were going to rape me, they had me pinned against the wall. But Jack stopped them. He saved me from being raped by three men Doctor, and they tortured him horribly for that. He was a good man and I wanted to save him. He deserved to be saved!” She was sobbing uncontrollably by this point.

 

“I'm really sorry Martha, I wish I'd known the true situation. I would have done things very differently on Nirvana and the research station.” Then the Doctor tried to defend himself again, “But Jack chose to jump into that rift. I didn't make him.”

 

“No?” queried Martha. “I think the belief that you would leave him behind had a lot to do with that don't you? He must have heard everything you said.”

 

Martha walked to other side of the console room from the Doctor, facing away from him and trying to calm herself. Eventually she regained her composure enough to ask “will he be all right, jumping through the rift I mean? What will happen to him?”

 

Guilt spiked through the Doctor like a knife. “He was probably ripped apart by the time winds in the rift and if he did manage to get through he could have landed anywhere. The chances of it being a habitable place are extremely low.” He paused before continuing. “I may not have wanted him on the TARDIS but I did not want this.”

 

Ripped apart by the time winds, Martha mused. Perhaps that was something that would finally kill Jack and allow him to rest. Perhaps he had hoped for that when he jumped.

 

Jack's story had severely dented her faith in the Doctor. She had initially given him the benefit of the doubt but his behaviour towards Jack at the research station had convinced her that what Jack had said was true. If she had been in a cell with a complete stranger she doubted that the Doctor would have hesitated to save them. And if the Doctor could behave so badly to one of his companions how could she continue to travel with him. She would always be waiting for him to abandon her and she couldn't live like that.

 

Decision made, she spoke up again. “What took you so long Doctor? I was on that research station for weeks. Next time how long should I wait until I figure out one day that you aren't coming for me? I think with Jack it was about 4 months and even then he hadn't totally given up hope.”

 

“I would never abandon you Martha”, the Doctor exclaimed, “I will always come for you.”

 

A sob caught in Martha's throat as she choked out “And isn't that exactly what you said to him. Take me home Doctor, I don't want to travel with you anymore.”


	16. Through the Rift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an AU so in my Torchwood, Owen, Tosh and Ianto run Torchwood 3, Ianto was transferred from Torchwood 1 in 2002 as a field agent (there is no cyber girlfriend in the basement).

The TARDIS loved Jack. She was a loyal friend, and when she saw him jump, unprotected, into the maelstrom of a space time vortex, she did everything she could to help. She couldn't transport him back out, but she could reach into the vortex, provide some protection from the time winds, and manipulate the rift into providing a safe landing. And thus Jack emerged from the rift in Cardiff 2002. 

As the rift released him, his bracelets registered the lack of a dampening field and activated.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The sound of a rift alert echoed round the Hub.

As Ianto and Owen grabbed their gear, Tosh checked out the alert. “It's in an alley in Splott, I've got the address.”

Fifteen minutes later the SUV came to a halt (without a screech) at the end of the alley. Ianto, who was driving, had even parked legally. Exiting the SUV they walked warily into the alley, guns drawn. They couldn't see anything unusual at first, so Tosh holstered her gun and activated the rift detector.

“There's residual rift energy over there,” she indicated, pointing to the far end.

They moved forward again, Owen and Ianto in the lead. When they passed a set of industrial sized bins, they saw a body laying on the ground. First impressions indicated that it was a human, but they didn't want to take anything for granted. And even being human didn't presuppose it was friendly.

As they got closer they could see that it was a man with short dark hair. He was dressed in a pair of loose trousers and a T-shirt. He was face down in the alley, and shaking violently.

“Can you check him out Owen?” asked Tosh. “We'll cover you.”

Owen approached carefully, and turned the man onto his back. As he moved him, the man let out an agonised scream. “Jesus he's conscious!” Owen exclaimed. He quickly opened his medical kit and ran the Bekaran scanner over the man. “There doesn't seem to be anything physically wrong with him. So why is he reacting like this?”

“Could it be mental, rather than physical trauma, due to the rift?” asked Ianto.

Owen ran his hands over the man's body, looking for wounds or injury. “It looks exactly as if he's in a lot of physical pain, but I cant find out why. We're going to have to take him back to the Hub like this. I dare not give him any drugs until we know what's going on.”

Between them Ianto and Owen lifted the man, having great difficulty due to the agonised writhing he was doing. They nearly dropped him a couple of times, but eventually they got him settled in the SUV. Ianto drove back to the Hub where they took him down to the medical bay on a trolley.

Owen was at a loss. He just couldn't figure out what was wrong. It had been 2 hours since the man had come through the rift, and he was no nearer understanding what was going on. And in the meantime his patient was suffering. Owen had determined that he was human so he could use normal painkilling drugs, if only he could be certain they wouldn't interact adversely with whatever was causing the problem.

 

Two more hours later, it was Tosh who made the breakthrough. By this point their patient was sobbing and whimpering heartbreakingly, occasionally he seemed to be pleading in a language they couldn't understand. Tosh was trying every scanner they had, to see if she could detect anything anomalous, and finally she did.

“It's the bracelets,” she cried in triumph. “They are feeding some kind of energy into his nervous system. So all we have to do is get them off him.”

“And I can give him drugs thank god,” said Owen. He filled a syringe with morphine, and plunged it into his patient's shoulder. It took effect quickly, and finally their patient relaxed into sleep. Owen relaxed too. Despite his sarcastic exterior, he cared about his patients and hated to see them suffer.

With the man now happily unconscious they had the time to investigate the bracelets properly. Tosh moved in to take a detailed scan of each one. They were identical. They were very close fitting round the man's wrists, and couldn't be moved up or down his arm. Though they couldn't be seen directly, the scans showed that many thin filaments went from the undersides of the bracelets into his arms. Tosh's scanner could pick up the energy flowing from the power source in each bracelet through the filaments.

“They're barbaric,” said Ianto with quiet anger, “but how on Earth are we going to get them off him?”

“We can't cut them off him,” stated Tosh, “I've scanned the circuitry, and its rigged to electrocute the wearer if the bracelet circuits or any filaments are broken.”

“Could you use the singularity scalpel?” she asked Owen.

“No,” he replied, then explained, “even if I was good at using it, I'd only ever manage to remove a compact object from something else, I'd never manage a ring shape. He'd lose his hands if I tried,”

Tosh stared intently at the circuitry diagram. “Perhaps there's some way to turn them off. I cant believe whoever put these things on him wanted to incapacitate him all the time.”

“Work on it Tosh,” ordered Owen, “I can keep him out for several hours, but longer term we need to do something about these damn bracelets.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

With nothing more he could do at the Hub, Ianto went home to sleep. Owen slept on the couch in the Hub, where he could keep an eye on his patient. Tosh stayed up late, pouring over circuit diagrams.

Despite his absolute tiredness, Ianto found it difficult to sleep. The awful plight of the rift victim was really bothering him. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the man writhing in pain. He was determined that they would find some way to help him, and if he ever met the people responsible for those bracelets he'd make them wish they'd never been born.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning Ianto arrived back at the Hub at 7am. Tosh was still awake, having had no sleep at all. Owen was still fast asleep on the couch.

Ianto went down to the medical bay to check on the patient. He was still unconscious, but starting to show signs of distress in his sleep. So Ianto woke Owen.

“I think he needs some more painkillers Owen.”

“You're right, but I don't want to keep doing this much longer,” he replied. “Tosh have you any idea yet how to turn them off.”

Tosh looked up from her screen. “Yes I do. There's a detector in the bracelet that's looking for a signal. If we can send it the right signal it will deactivate the energy output. But it needs to be a continuous signal or the bracelets will reactivate.”

“And do you know what the right signal is?” asked Ianto.

“Just about,” said Tosh, “but we'll have to experiment until we get the right frequency.”

It only took half an hour to find the right frequency, and a few minutes for Tosh to rig a transmitter up to send the signal throughout the Hub. The patient relaxed in his sleep before more painkillers were necessary.

“Thank god for that,” said Owen. “Now we need to decide what we're going to do with him.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ianto.

“Well,” continued Owen, “we know nothing about him. Perhaps there's a reason for these bracelets. Perhaps he's a criminal, and dangerous. We have to treat him with the same caution we would anyone who comes through the rift.”

“You don't mean you want to lock him up,” gasped Tosh.

“Just as a precaution until we can question him,” Owen replied.

Ianto didn't like it, but he could see the sense in what Owen was saying. “He's right Tosh, we cant let our sympathy for him influence us, we have to put him in a cell for now.”

After Owen had checked him over, to make sure there were no residual effects from the bracelets, they carried the rift victim down to the cells, while he was still unconscious. They laid him gently on the bed in the cell. They had done their best to make it more comfortable, with blankets and a pillow. A jug of water and a cup were left in one corner. Then they went back to the main Hub, to carry on with their other work while waiting for him to wake up.


	17. Obeying Orders

When Jack woke, he froze. His memory was hazy, but he remembered jumping into the rift, and then his bracelets activated and he was barely aware of anything else except pain, until this point. He was incredibly thankful that the bracelets were no longer active, but he had no idea where he was.

 

As he looked around, and suddenly realised that he was locked in a cell, Jack snapped. The weight of the years of imprisonment and abuse, coupled with the events of the last several days, suddenly overwhelmed him. To believe that he had finally escaped, even if escape meant true death, only to wake and find himself back in a cell was too much.

 

He screamed and shrieked and started to bang his head as hard as he could on the brick wall of the cell.

 

Ianto, Tosh and Owen heard the almighty row in the main Hub. “Shit,” they exclaimed as one, before running down towards the cells. Owen stopped on the way to pick up some tranquilizers.

 

As they got to the cells, Ianto just shouted “stop that!” at the top of his voice. He didn't expect it to work, but the effect on their prisoner was immediate. He spun round, saw them and dropped to his knees. It was a posture of total submission. Kneeling head bowed low. He also started speaking the same phrase over and over again, in a language none of them could identify.

 

“Typical,” snorted Owen, “why can't they speak English in outer space, or wherever it is that he came from.”

 

With a brief pause, their patient's chanting stopped and restarted in halting but recognisable English. “I'm sorry, please forgive me, please don't hurt me.”

 

“Jeez,” yelled Owen, “he understood me, and he does bloody well speak English.”

 

Looking at the scene before them Tosh, who had vivid memories of her own days locked in a cell, could stand it no longer. “Get him out of that cell. He's not a dangerous criminal. He's more like a slave and we've terrorised him.”

 

No one disagreed.

 

With Owen on guard with a stun gun in case of trouble, Ianto opened the cell. Tosh ventured slowly inside and addressed the man. “Can you understand me?”

 

He kept his head bowed but stopped chanting. “Yes,” he whispered.

 

If the slave analogy was correct he would probably follow orders, Tosh thought. So she told him, “Stand up and look at me.”

 

He did so, and then said “How may I serve you?”

 

His English was hesitant, and certainly not perfect, but it was understandable.

 

“Tell me your name,” Tosh commanded.

 

“Jack,” he answered.

 

“Are you from Earth ?”

 

“No,” he replied.

 

Tosh continued questioning, though it was slow going as Jack tended to give one word answers. At least he would answer direct questions. Asking general ones didn't meet with much success.

 

Eventually they had ascertained that he was human, but from a planet a long way from Earth in the far future. Also, he understood English but it had been so long since he'd used it he was having trouble finding the words.

 

When Tosh had asked if he was a slave, Jack had been unwilling or unable to answer.

 

Having finally decided that Jack was not an immediate danger, the Torchwood team went about organising a room for him in the Hub that was nothing like a cell. Owen stayed with Jack, trying to get more information from him, while Ianto and Tosh went to sort out the room.

 

It took them a while, as they had to go shopping for bedding, and other essentials, but they eventually had a bright and cosy room sorted, down one of the corridors well away from the cells. It had a shower and toilet next door. They had also provided toiletries and a few books. Tosh had set up an alarm to alert them if Jack left the corridor where his rooms were. When all was ready, Ianto went to fetch Jack from the cell and escorted him to his room.

 

“This is your room,” he explained to Jack, who looked a little apprehensive.

 

“Go on in,” Ianto encouraged.

 

Jack did so, with Ianto following.

 

“The bathroom is next door, and you should have everything you need. And there's some books to read, which will help you practise your English as well as pass the time. Get some rest now and we'll check in on you later.” With that, he left Jack standing by the bed and went upstairs to the main Hub to watch what he'd do on the CCTV.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

As Ianto left him alone in the room, some of the tension left Jack. He had expected Ianto to require him to serve him when they had arrived at the bedroom. However, he was still far from calm. He looked over to the top corner of the room at the camera mounted there. So, no matter how comfortable the cage, he was still a prisoner.

 

Jack had recovered his equanimity a bit after his earlier meltdown. After believing he had escaped, the sudden shock of waking in a cell after suffering hours of agonising pain had pushed him over the edge. But he was so conditioned to obedience that, even in that state, he had obeyed whenever he was given an order. That had had the fortunate side effect of calming him down.

 

He had not known what to say when they asked if he was a slave. A slave in all but name yes, but technically he was a sentenced prisoner undergoing his punishment.

 

It remained to be seen what his new masters wanted with him. They seemed to have managed to deactivate the bracelets, which presumably meant that they could reactivate them whenever they wanted. He did not know where he was, or what year he was in, but the fact that English was the local language was a hopeful sign. He didn't think that anything here could be as bad as Nirvana or the ARC research station. And, even more important , they didn't know he couldn't die. As long as he could keep that secret he could never be as badly off as he had been before.

 

But there was no point wondering. He would find out eventually. For now he would rest, as he had been ordered. Before sleeping he needed to use the bathroom. He wasn't used to having a separate room for this, and he found it amazingly hard to approach the bedroom door and open it. Part of him was amazed that the door did indeed open, and the other part cringed with terror at the idea of opening it himself. But open it did, and he used the bathroom as quickly as he could, hurrying back into the bedroom with his heart pounding.

 

They had left him pyjamas ! He looked at them in disbelief. In over 130 years he had not even seen a pair, sleeping in whatever he happened to be wearing, or naked when with a client. And even before that he'd almost never worn them. For some reason their presence brought a lump to his throat.

 

He was expected to wear them, so that is what he did. There was a light switch but he didn't dare use that. The masters would want to able to see what he was doing. He climbed into the bed, which was comfortable, with a luxurious duvet. The sort of thing he had been used to only when with a client on Nirvana. Perhaps things would change in the morning, but for now he was going to enjoy the first no strings luxury he had been given in far too long.


	18. A Safe Haven

Jack was exhausted after the emotional and physical trauma of the last 7 days. For once he slept deeply, and for several hours. When he woke he was alone. He got out of bed and tentatively tried the door; it still opened. He hesitated for a minute, but eventually plucked up the courage to go out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. This time he didn't scurry back to his room as quickly as possible, but had a shower. All during his captivity his masters had wanted him clean.

 

Creeping quietly back into the bedroom wearing the pyjamas again, he looked around. There was a wardrobe and a shelf with books on it. He opened the wardrobe. In it were two of pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, underwear, socks and a couple of sweatshirts.

 

There was more than one set of things to wear. He didn't know what they wanted him to put on so he would have to wait for them to tell him. He didn't want to make them angry by getting it wrong. He was sure they were watching and when they were ready they'd come for him.

 

* * *

 

Ianto, Owen and Tosh had watched Jack as he prepared for bed, purely to make sure that he was OK. They could see how nervous he was just opening a door, but were pleased that he did settle down to rest.

 

Tosh went home, but Ianto and Owen spent the night in the Hub: Ianto in the room below the main office, and Owen on the sofa. Ianto woke several times and checked the CCTV to make sure their visitor was all right.

 

In the morning, after Jack had awoken, they watched him sit in the room doing nothing. He didn't pick up any of the books they had lef,t and he didn't get dressed.

 

Tosh went out to buy pastries, and Starbuck's coffee, for four for breakfast. After she left, Ianto went down to Jack's room to fetch him. They didn't anticipate any trouble but Owen had a stun gun handy just in case.

 

Ianto knocked on Jack's door, but when he received no answer he opened it and looked in. Jack was standing by the bed. He began to kneel as Ianto came into the room, but halted in alarm when Ianto cried “Stop!”

 

Seeing the fear on Jack's face at his abrupt order he spoke softly, saying “It's OK, but you don't need to kneel to anyone here. Please don't kneel.”

 

Jack nodded obediently.

 

“Now,” said Ianto, “why don't you get dressed?”

 

Jack looked at him and whispered, “You haven't told me what to wear.”

 

Ianto was surprised at this reason but he opened the wardrobe and told Jack to choose what he wanted, and to put it on. Jack did so quickly, and followed Ianto to the main Hub when told to do so. They arrived at the same time as Tosh. She set out the pastries, plates and coffees on the table and said to Jack, “I didn't know how you liked coffee so I just got medium with milk, I hope that's OK.”

 

Jack looked at her in surprise. She had fetched coffee for him ! “Thank you,” he stuttered.

 

“Come and sit down,” invited Ianto, indicating a vacant chair.

 

Knowing that he wouldn't do so without an instruction, when he was sitting Tosh passed him the pastries and told him to choose one and eat it. Jack, who hadn't had anything to eat in several days, did so eagerly. He was so eager that Tosh gave him hers as well.

 

When they had all finished, Owen addressed Jack. “You're probably wondering where you are. This is Cardiff in the year 2002 on Earth. Since you know English I assume you are familiar with this planet.”

 

Jack nodded.

 

“There is a rift in space/time here in Cardiff, and we frequently get aliens and alien artefacts falling through. You came through the rift. We managed to deactivate those bracelets that you're wearing. I'm sorry it took us so long, but we couldn't get them off you. If we cut them off they'll electrocute you.”

 

Jack of course knew that that wouldn't be a problem, but he desperately wanted to keep that secret so said nothing.

 

Owen continued to explain. “We've rigged up a signal here in the Hub to stop them activating, Tosh is also working on a backup signal in case we get a power loss, but it means that at the moment you cant leave the Hub.”

 

This surprised Jack, who hadn't expected to be able to leave under any circumstances.

 

Ianto, Tosh and Owen had discussed things the previous evening. They needed to give Jack something to do, since he'd be spending all his time in the Hub. It couldn't be anything that involved sensitive equipment, or information, which left only a few options.

 

“So, since you're stuck here, we though maybe you'd like to help out with clearing up, making coffee, that sort of thing. Would that be OK ?”

 

“Yes,” Jack answered, as if there could be any doubt. “Please show me what to do.”

 

Jack quickly got to grips with all that he was asked to do, and even became good at making coffee. He was well fed, not abused in any way, and hadn't been happier in over a century. But he still had the mindset of a slave and obeyed any request as if it were a direct order.

 

* * * *

 

The others were discussing Jack one night, after he had gone to his room. They appreciated having someone there to tidy the Hub, and they trusted him enough now to leave only one of them on duty at the Hub with him overnight now. However, they were unhappy about the slow progress he was making socially.

 

“It's been weeks now,” said Ianto, “and he still treats us like his masters.”

 

“He's institutionalised,” Tosh replied. “He still won't say that he was a slave, but it's obvious by his behaviour. I asked him how long he'd been imprisoned and although he wouldn't give me a timescale, perhaps he doesn't know, he did say he'd been a prisoner most of his life. So it's hardly surprising that a few weeks isn't enough time to break out of it.”

 

“I just worry that a psychiatric facility would be able to help him more than we can,” interjected Owen.

 

“You can't send him to one of those!” cried Ianto, “They'd lock him in, and you saw how he reacted to that when he arrived. And how would you explain about the bracelets. No we have to keep him here.”

 

“You're right,” agreed Owen, “we should give him a lot more time.”

 

And life settled into a comfortable and happy routine for Jack. He had found a safe haven.


	19. Rehabilitation

Ianto, Tosh and Owen continued to try to help Jack socially (between life and death Torchwood missions). They chatted to him around the Hub, they made sure they never gave him a direct order but always asked for things politely, as a request. Tosh and Ianto even stayed on some evenings, to socialise with him, doing simple things like playing cards or listening to music. Jack wasn't quite so comfortable with Owen, as he had trouble with Owen's sarcastic nature, though Owen was doing his best to rein this in.

 

Slowly and gradually, Jack responded. He was beginning to think of the team as friends instead of masters, though he was always respectful. He had become very keen on reading books, and kept Ianto busy keeping him supplied with new ones. He used the Torchwood gym to regain some fitness. The Pleasure Palace had made him keep fit, but on the research station he had got barely any exercise at all. Only the fact that food was also in short supply had prevented him from getting fat.

 

 

He now sometimes volunteered information, instead of waiting to be questioned about everything. He was also willing to talk about himself to them, as long as the discussion was light and didn't stray into dangerous areas like how old he was, how long he'd been a prisoner, or what he been required to do while a prisoner.

 

Tosh had even managed to build a portable transmitter that Jack could carry with him, so that he could leave the Hub. He was grateful for her effort but had still not agreed to venture outside. Being comfortable with three people was one thing, but outside there were thousands of people and Jack was terrified of facing them. There was also the, not so minor point, that the only time he had been outside in decades was when he landed in the alley where the team had found him. He'd been incapable of noticing what was around him then. So, not surprisingly, Jack felt somewhat agoraphobic.

 

There had been an outside exercise area at the Pleasure Palace on Nirvana, but since he'd been transferred to the Astratech research station he had not been outside.

 

Jack's fear of being touched had also faded with time. Initially, any time one of the team had touched him he had cringed away or flinched. Now if he was touched in passing he accepted it as not meaning anything.

 

Months went by. The Torchwood team were now so comfortable with having Jack in the Hub that they went out on field missions, leaving him alone back at the base. He was left there alone most nights. When they returned from a mission, he was always waiting to help them with any jobs that needed doing: helping secure Weevils, assisting Owen in treating any injuries the team had incurred, or even ordering takeaway.

 

On one particular occasion, Ianto was hauling an alien artefact that had come through the rift into Bute Park back into the Hub, when Jack came to help him. When Ianto nearly dropped the artefact, Jack leaped forward and caught it.

 

“Careful Ianto, you don't want to activate this. It's a Virisian mining engine. If it starts up it will vaporise half the Hub.”

 

Ianto gaped, “How do you know that?” he asked.

 

“I've been to Virisia, I saw one in action,” Jack replied.

 

“Would you recognise other alien artefacts,” asked Ianto gleefully.

 

“Probably quite a few,” admitted Jack.

 

“Right,” Ianto said happily, “you may just have got yourself another job.”

 

From that time on Jack was officially assigned to the archives as a researcher, and signed on to the Torchwood payroll as Jack Matthews. In order to do everything properly, Ianto created a fake background for Jack and presented him with a full set of forged ID, including passport, driving licence and National Insurance Number.

 

One evening Ianto wanted Jack to celebrate his new job. He had Tosh and Owen on side, and was trying to persuade Jack to go outside with them all for a walk by the bay. He would have tried for a trip to a restaurant, but thought that might be too much for a first excursion.

 

Jack, who was feeling very positive after his promotion, surprisingly agreed.

 

At 8pm the crowds in the Plass had largely disappeared, but, with it being the height of summer, there was plenty of daylight left. The four of them walked up to the tourist office entrance. Jack was carrying the portable transmitter in the pocket of his jeans.

 

Tosh and Owen led the way but, as Jack walked out of the door, the huge expanse of openness hit him like a brick wall and he cringed back suddenly, lurching back into the tourist office gasping. He lurched straight into Ianto, who had been just behind him. Ianto caught him in a hug, which Jack did not cringe from.

 

“It's OK Jack,” Ianto encouraged. “Just take it slowly, look outside for a while first before you step out.”

 

Jack did so, looking wonderingly at the outside world that he hadn't seen for over 30 years. It was beautiful. He could see the sea and the sky from his position hovering in the doorway. The only people visible were Tosh and Owen whom he trusted. Gathering his courage and holding onto Ianto he stepped out of the door.

 

They went for a short walk around the Bay area then back to the Plass, to avoid overwhelming Jack.

 

“I've been here before,” Jack exclaimed in surprise. “I knew we were in Cardiff, but not that we were right where I was last time I was here.”

 

After they had dropped him off at the Hub, Tosh, Ianto and Owen stopped off at a pub before heading home. Their talk soon turned to Jack.

 

“There's something that doesn't quite add up with Jack,” Owen was saying. “His PTSD is far too serious for someone who was a prisoner for just a few years. I know he says it was for most of his life, but that doesn't make sense either. He's told us stories about his life beforehand, when he visited Earth before, when he went to Virisia, and he recognises so many alien things that he must have got around a lot. He can't have been that young when he was locked up.”

 

“Maybe he's a lot older than he looks,” suggested Tosh. “Maybe humans from his planet and century live a lot longer.”

 

“I guess it's possible,” Owen replied, “but even so he must have had a hellishly bad time for the PTSD to be this bad. Has he ever told either of you why he was imprisoned or what happened to him while he was there?”

 

“He told me that he was convicted of a crime that he didn't commit,” answered Ianto. “But he's never said how he was treated.”

 

“I think we can guess, given what those bracelets were designed to do,” said Tosh with a shudder. “I wish I could find a way to get them off him. But at least they don't do physical damage. He's got no scars, so thank god whoever had him stuck with just using those.”

 

“All we can do is continue helping him reintegrate into society,” sighed Ianto. “We need to work on getting him outside more and into restaurants, supermarkets, and yes Owen, eventually pubs.”


	20. A Friendship Deepens

After the initial foray outside, Ianto, Tosh and Owen made sure that Jack left the Hub at least two or three times a week. They took him shopping, with his own money now that Jack was on the payroll. He bought his own food to cook in the Hub and chose his own clothes, though he stuck with the jeans and T-shirt theme. He avoided the leather jacket sections of shops like the plague.

Jack was still nervous, especially when there were people there that he didn't know, but as long as there wasn't a large crowd he coped.

Jack was also very successful at identifying artefacts in the archive, and advising the team on objects, and indeed aliens, that had come through the rift. They had rigged a TV feed from a portable camera to the Hub so that he could get a good look at things, and let them know if he knew what they were. By choice Jack never went out into the field, and the others did not expect him to. Even if he had wanted to, the chance of the portable transmitter being damaged in a fight, and leaving him helpless, was too high. His knowledge had helped them avoid serious incidents, and they were very grateful for that.

As the weeks and months went by, Jack became more and more used to other people. Ianto finally suggested that they go to a pub. Jack agreed, and so the evening found them at the Black Swan, a quiet pub down a side street not too far from the Plass. Now that he was more confident, Ianto found Jack surprisingly good company.

Things fell into a pattern: Ianto and Jack went to the pub or to a restaurant at least twice a week, sometimes accompanied by Tosh and Owen. On evenings that Jack stayed in the Hub Ianto was frequently to be found there also, playing chess, cards , watching Jack's new TV or just talking.

One of the oddest conversations that Ianto had with Jack was about the bracelets. Jack understood that they couldn't be removed without killing him, but one evening, when they were alone in the Hub, Jack asked Ianto for a favour.

“If anything ever happens to me Ianto, and I die, can you get the bracelets off me ?”

Understandably surprised at the turn of the conversation, Ianto first tried to reassure Jack that nothing was going to happen to him. “You don't need to worry Jack, we don't expect you to come out into the field with us, and the Hub is safe so no one can hurt you.”

“I know it's not likely,” replied Jack, “but just in case it does, I'd like to know that the bracelets won't be left on me.”

“Is it that important to you ?” asked Ianto.

Jack nodded. “Will you promise?”

“Ok,” Ianto said, “I'll make sure.

Their conversation then moved back on to less morbid topics, with Ianto trying to explain the attractions of the James Bond films.

The following week, Ianto took Jack to the Cardiff multiplex to see the latest James Bond film. He had chosen a weekday, when the film had been showing for a while, and there would not be many people there. The rift had cooperated by being quiet. It was the first time that Jack had been in a cinema. He had not gone while in London in 1941 and, by the 51st century, big screen action could be viewed in any home. Halfway through the main feature, Ianto gently took hold of Jack's hand and held it.

Jack tensed when he did so, but did not pull his hand away.

Ianto, understanding how reticent Jack was about touching, merely smiled and made no further moves.

Weeks went by and, when aliens and rift alerts permitted, Jack and Ianto continued to go out together. They kept to quiet places, but this was no longer purely as practice for Jack in social situations, but rather actual dates. The dates were touchingly innocent. Jack behaved like a shy and inexperienced teenager. Ianto, who didn't know the true circumstances of his captivity, had read enough between the lines to tread carefully and be very patient.


	21. The Robot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every story needs a killer robot, right ?!!

Tosh and Jack were in the main part of the Hub when the rift alert sounded. Tosh zeroed in on the location, while Jack contacted Ianto and Owen, who were down in the archives.

“Oh my god Jack, it's coming through right here in the Hub!” As she said this they saw a swirl of rift energy appear and a six foot, terrifying, robot appeared.

Horrified, Jack recognised the type of robot it was. It was M'ritan. The type of robot they used in their war against their neighbouring planet. They were programmed to kill any higher lifeforms who were not M'ritan. They were usually armed to the teeth, as well as being lethal killers even when unarmed.

The M'ritan attack robot had fortunately lost its major armaments, presumably during it's passage through the rift. If it hadn't done so, it would have annihilated the Torchwood team in seconds.

 

“Lock down now,” yelled Jack, urgently. There was no way they could let this get out of the Hub.

 

Tosh leaped to activate the lock down, knowing that Jack knew enough about aliens to recognise the threat level accurately. And just the fact that he had issued an order, against all his conditioning, showed how important this was. Even though it would leave the team locked in with the robot, she didn't hesitate.

 

“Ianto, Owen” she cried over the comms. “Arm yourselves, alien incursion on the main level.”

 

As Ianto and Owen ran towards the main Hub, Jack and Tosh retreated from the robot into the medical bay. The robot didn't follow them immediately. It seemed to be disoriented from the fall through the rift.

 

Jack whispered to Tosh urgently. “I know how to deactivate this robot. It's a simple procedure, but we need to disable it so we can get close enough to pull the control disc out. And normal guns wont work against it. We need something special from the armoury. Do you know the sonic disrupter that's stored there ?”

 

Tosh nodded.

 

“Fetch it as quick as you can.”

 

Tosh crept quietly away, taking the long route to avoid the robot. When she was out of view she ran as quietly but as fast as she could towards the armoury, cursing the fact that it was so far from the central Hub.

 

The robot meanwhile was looking less uncertain and was beginning to sweep the area, looking for sentient lifeforms.

 

Jack stayed hidden. Though weaponless the robot was still deadly. The arms ended in long claws that could rip an enemy to shreds if they got close.

 

At that moment Ianto and Owen ran into view. They started shooting at the robot, but the bullets bounced off harmlessly. Tosh was nowhere in sight.

 

As the robot turned towards Ianto and Owen, Jack could see what was coming. Tosh was going to be too late. The robot was only 10 feet from the others. It was going to kill them right in front of him. These were the people who had helped him, had been kind to him and brought him back from the brink of insanity. And this was Ianto, who he was developing feelings for. He couldn't allow it. No matter what it cost him, he couldn't let it happen.

 

If it had just been death he had to fear he wouldn't have hesitated. But, if he succeeded in saving them, they could find out that he didn't stay dead. They would know that he was a freak and who knew what they would do then, even Ianto. It took only seconds for him to reach a decision. The robot was now advancing purposefully towards Ianto. It was almost on him. There was no more time.

 

Jack ran towards the robot quietly, aiming for the control disc that he could see low on its left side. As he reached it, the robot swung towards him and thrust its clawed hand into him, stabbing into his chest and abdomen. Jack was well used to pain, however, and he did not give up. Pushing forwards and impaling himself further onto the claws in the process his hand reached his goal. He grabbed the control disc, twisted it and with the last of his strength pulled it out of its socket.

 

The robot deactivated immediately and fell in a heap, dragging Jack down with it. Ianto and Owen rushed towards him. Owen ripped Jack's shirt away from the wounds. The robot's claws were still deeply embedded, and had done more damage as it fell. Blood was flowing fast, and Owen knew that it was hopeless. Only immediate surgery would help and, even if the Hub was not in lock down, they would never get him to a hospital in time.

 

Ianto was kneeling on Jack's other side, holding his hand. He could barely hold back his tears.

 

“You saved my life,” he choked out.

 

“I'm glad,” Jack answered weakly. “It's OK, but remember what I asked you.”

 

Ianto looked confused for a moment and then said “You mean the bracelets?”

 

“Yes, get them off me. Please.”

 

“I will,” Ianto promised as Jack slipped away.

 

* * * *

 

Jack's body lay on the table in the medical bay. He had been covered with a sheet. Tosh stood by the table. By the time she had returned with the sonic disrupter the robot was disabled and Jack was already dead. She was crying freely, and blaming herself for not being quicker. Ianto had explained about Jack's last request, and they certainly owed it to him to fulfill it, strange though it was. It wasn't as if it would hurt him now.

 

So, Owen was using an alien laser cutter on one of the bracelets, which responded with a massive jolt of electricity. After the shock had occurred it was safe to pull the two halves of the bracelet off Jack's wrist. The bracelet, trailing its bloody filaments, was placed in a kidney dish for archive later. The second one was dealt with similarly, leaving Jack with a ring of wounds round each wrist. They did not bleed, as he was already dead.

 

Having fulfilled Jack's last request, the team left his body temporarily in the medical bay, and went to deal with the robot.

 

* * * *

 

Jack gasped back into life an hour later. He looked around fearfully, and was relieved to find himself alone. He looked down at his wrists and practically cried with the relief of seeing that the bracelets were gone. He silently thanked Ianto. The most obvious symbol of his captivity, and the mechanism of keeping him under control, was at last gone.

 

He didn't have time for celebration though. He had to get away before the others came back and found him alive. Even though they were his friends, he didn't know how they would react to him now. He wanted to think the best of them, but everyone who had known his secret (except Martha) had been revolted by him, or used it against him. The team had kept him at Torchwood as an employee, thinking him a human. They might well hand him over to UNIT, or some other agency, for experimentation when they found out how inhuman he actually was. He couldn't take the chance.

 

And Ianto, who was more than a friend, what would he think? He wouldn't want to hand him over to anyone (Jack fervently hoped), but would he be disgusted by him now, by the abomination, the freak?

 

Fighting back his emotions and terror, Jack went quickly to his room to change. He wouldn't get far outside covered in blood. Then he tried to leave the Hub. He began to panic when he found that the Hub was still in lock down, and would be for another two hours. There was no way out.


	22. Aftermath

Jack was panic stricken. He went back into the medical bay, and briefly entertained the idea of killing himself again, so that he resurrected after the lock down had finished. But there was no way he could match his previous wounds, or guarantee not reviving right in front of the others.

 

As he was hovering in indecision, he heard voices approaching. And, before he could hide, Tosh walked into the medical bay.

 

Tosh screamed and raised the sonic disrupter that she'd been on the way to return to the armoury. “Don't move," she ordered him.

 

Jack froze instantly, only partly because of the gun, mainly because of the strength of the order itself.

 

Tosh, meanwhile, was calling Ianto and Owen, while keeping Jack covered with the gun. “Owen, Ianto, we have another alien incursion. Get to the med bay now.”

 

They others only took a few seconds to reach the med bay. Ianto went white with shock when he saw Jack. Owen took one look, muttered an expletive, and pointed his gun straight at Jack.

 

“What are you?” he demanded. “Some kind of alien body snatcher ?”

 

Jack backed away in fear. This was it, he was going to have to tell them he couldn't die.

 

 

“Don't shoot,” he cried. “It's me, Jack.”

 

“Jack's dead,” replied Tosh icily.

 

“I can't die,” explained Jack, “or at least, I die but I don't stay dead.”

 

“You can't expect us to believe that,” yelled Owen.

 

“It's true,” Jack said sadly, “I wish it wasn't.” He appealed to Ianto. “Ask me anything, you know me better than anyone else here.”

 

Ianto thought for a moment and then asked, “What film did we see on our first date?”

 

Jack smiled and said “James Bond. You'd been trying for days to get me to understand why they are good. And it was the first time you held my hand.”

 

Ianto looked to Tosh and Owen and said “That's right.”

 

Tosh started to lower her gun, but Owen held his steady. “What's to say that an alien can't read memories from a body?”

 

Jack had a sudden thought. “Ianto! You remember how surprised you were when I asked you to make sure that, if I died, the bracelets should be removed. Well that was because of this. I knew if I died you could get them off me, so I'd be free of them when I revived.”

 

“Then why didn't you tell me that before?” asked Ianto.

 

“I was scared,” cried Jack. “If people know about this, they use it. They treat me as a piece of meat to use in experiments, or worse.” He shuddered. “And I didn't know how you would react, if you would hand me over to someone like UNIT.”

 

“Don't you trust me?” asked Ianto sadly.

 

Jack looked down at the floor and, fighting back tears, whispered, “When the person I loved found out about this, he abandoned me on an uninhabitable space station and left me to die over and over. He called me a freak and an abomination.”

 

He raised his head and, looking Ianto straight in the eye, asked “Am I an abomination Ianto?”

 

“No Jack, you're not,” and, brushing past Owen's gun, Ianto enclosed Jack in a hug as he cried.

 

* * * * *

 

Half an hour later, Ianto had persuaded Jack to go to his quarters to rest, and the rest of the team were gathered in the eating area.

 

“We're supposed to tell UNIT and Torchwood One about this,” Owen pointed out. “We'll be breaking all kinds of rules and regulations if we don't. He's not human.”

 

Ianto and Tosh were horrified by this. “We can't do that Owen. They wouldn't give a damn what we think. Jack was right. If they get their hands on him you know what they'll do. A non-human has no rights. They could do all sorts of experiments on him, even vivisection.” Tosh had suffered in a UNIT prison even though she was considered to have rights. She couldn't conceive of allowing UNIT to take Jack, knowing what they might do.

 

“This must be why his PTSD is so bad,” mused Owen. “We thought he hadn't been hurt physically, apart from with the bracelets. But he heals completely after he dies, with no scarring. So anything could have been done to him and there'd be no signs of it.”

 

 

“Jesus,” muttered Ianto. “No wonder he was such a mess when he first arrived. Regulations be damned, we can't tell anyone about this. He risked everything to save our lives, and he's our friend. We can't betray him.”

 

“Yes,” said Tosh. “And we mustn't even document this internally. If we ever get audited someone might find it.”

 

“Yeah, we don't want to be caught out,” agreed Owen. “And I agree we can't hand him over.”

 

* * * *

 

After the three of them had reached a consensus, Ianto went to Jack's room. He knocked but got no reply. Hesitantly, he pushed the door open and saw Jack sitting on his bed, head down with his knees drawn up to his chest, trembling.

 

“Jack,” Ianto said gently. “It's all right, we're not going to tell anyone. We'll falsify the report on this incident so there's no mention of your death.”

 

Jack lifted his head, wiping away his tears. “Thank you Ianto,” he said, with heartfelt relief. Then very hesitantly he asked, “and what about us?”

 

Ianto smiled and, grasping his hand, pulled him in for a gentle kiss. “That's fine too.”


	23. Significant Steps

Things were calm with the rift for several days after the M'ritan robot had come through. This gave the team a chance to fully assimilate the fact of Jack's immortality. Owen had given Jack a thorough physical after his death, which had shown him to be completely healthy. He had taken the chance, while he was doing the examination, to gently probe Jack about his past. As was usual though, Jack was not very forthcoming and Owen had given up fairly quickly.

 

Jack had been extremely skittish for several days after the team discovered his secret. He wanted to believe their assurances that they would not inform another agency, and their behaviour towards him did back up their promises. He also desperately hoped that, as Ianto had more time to think about it, he would stay with his initial reaction and not be repulsed by him. Ianto was the best thing that had happened to him in over a century and Jack did not want to lose him.

 

As the days went by, Jack eventually became more confident that his friends truly accepted him for what he was and would not betray his confidence. He relaxed again and life continued as before, working in the archives and dating Ianto. Life was good.

 

The best thing to result from the robot incident was that Jack was no longer encumbered by the bracelets, and could move about outside the hub without having to carry the portable transmitter.

 

* * * *

 

Two weeks after the robot incident, Jack and Ianto were out for dinner at their favourite Italian restaurant. Ianto was having his usual, while Jack was still working his way through the menu, trying a different dish each time they went there. They also ordered a bottle of wine, though Jack drank his sparingly.

 

Part way through the meal, Ianto pulled a box out of his pocket and said to Jack, “This is for you.”

 

Jack was surprised, and took the box. He opened it and found an expensive looking watch. He looked at Ianto with a question in his eyes.

 

“It's a thank you present for saving my life,” he explained. “I'm sorry it's so long after, but it took time to get it engraved.”

 

Jack turned the watch over and read the inscription. “To Jack, with heartfelt thanks and all my love, Ianto.”

 

Jack was overwhelmed, “Ianto, I don't know what to say,” he said huskily.

 

“It's OK, you don't need to say anything,” Ianto replied. “Just wear it. After all you, you need a watch.”

 

Jack suddenly smiled brilliantly and agreed, “Yes, I do. Thank you Ianto.”

 

* * *

 

Over the next several weeks Jack and Ianto became even closer, spending almost all their off duty time together. They even went to a rugby match, though Jack was worried by the crowds and didn't want to repeat the experience.

 

One night Ianto and Tosh had been injured when subduing a group of Weevils. Owen was patching up Tosh's arm and Ianto's back and shoulder. Tosh's injury was not serious, but Ianto was in a lot of pain and would not have proper use of his right shoulder or arm for several days. Owen gave him a shot of painkillers.

 

“You're going to need at least a week off, Ianto, and you'll have to get someone over to stay with you until you can use that shoulder properly. Is there someone you can call?”

 

Ianto shook his head, “There's only my sister, and she wouldn't be able to leave her kids.”

 

“I'll do it,” Jack interjected. “There's no reason I can't stay with you, and help while you recover. I'd like to help.”

 

* * *

 

And so Jack moved into the spare room in Ianto's flat. He helped Ianto with all his domestic needs, cooking meals, washing up and even shopping for food on his own. Of course Ianto also needed help with more intimate matters, such as dressing and taking showers. Jack was well used to the sight of naked men but, for the first time since the Game Station, he found himself admiring a man with new eyes. Apart from the ugly wounds marring his flesh Ianto was gorgeous. And the fact that he and Ianto were already emotionally more than friends stirred feelings in Jack that he had thought long gone.

 

As the end of the week approached, and Ianto recovered fast, Jack found himself feeling disappointed that he would be moving back into the Hub soon. Living in a normal home had been a new experience for him, and he liked it. And he would really miss seeing Ianto so much.

 

On the evening before Ianto was scheduled to go back to work, and Jack to move back into the hub, they were sitting together on the couch watching TV. Both had just had showers and were comfortably lounging around in bathrobes. They were kissing and stroking each others backs and sides through the bathrobes. Though they had been dating for months now, things were still moving very slowly physically. They had never gone beyond relatively innocent touching, though their kisses were getting more and more passionate.

 

Ianto tentatively pushed the boundaries and slid his hands inside Jack's bathrobe, caressing his chest.

 

Jack froze for a moment, and Ianto began to remove his hands. But Jack stopped him and, with a smile, said “It's OK I want you to.”

 

Ianto's answering smile lit up the room. “Tell me if you want me to stop all right ?”

 

They continued like this for several minutes until Ianto pulled back a little. “You know this would be a lot more comfortable on a bed.”

 

Jack hesitated for a moment but he trusted Ianto implicitly. He knew he wouldn't go any further than Jack was comfortable with. So he stood up, took Ianto's hand and led him into his bedroom.

 

Once inside, Ianto gently sat Jack on the bed and pushed his robe off his shoulders to his waist. He kissed all down his chest then looked at him and asked “Is it OK if I take my robe off?” At Jack's nod, he removed it, hanging it over the back of a chair. He stood before Jack in all his naked glory.

 

“You're beautiful,” Jack whispered, reaching out to pass his hands over Ianto's chest and back.

 

They lay back together on the bed and undertook a long slow exploration of each others bodies, kissing and touching as they went. Eventually Ianto took the final step and palmed Jack's erection, massaging gently. Jack reciprocating, using his considerable skill to stroke Ianto into hardness and a semi-coherent state. A few minutes of this brought them both to completion, gasping out their pleasure as they came. Afterwards they cuddled up together in Jack's bed and slept.

 

* * * *

 

The next morning Ianto woke to find Jack watching him. He smiled and reached up to kiss him. “Are you OK?, he asked seriously.”

 

“Yes, I'm good,” Jack replied, “I feel safe with you. It was good.”

 

Of course Ianto could guess, from Jack's attitude towards sex, that he had been abused sexually in the past, but Jack had never admitted to it directly. He was surprised, therefore, when Jack continued to speak.

 

“You understand don't you Ianto?” Jack asked, “that there are things in my past that mean I can't be totally free with you sexually?”

 

Ianto nodded, and asked for confirmation of what he had guessed. “When you were a prisoner, were you raped?”

 

“Yes,” Jack admitted with shame, “repeatedly, for years.”

 

“And did they know you couldn't die?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Jesus,” Ianto exclaimed, “they must have put you through hell.”

 

“They did,” Jack confirmed. “Anyone with enough money was allowed to do anything they wanted to me. That was usually rape, with physical abuse before, during and after. And I had to pretend to like it, if that's what they wanted. They often killed me and, even if I survived, the injuries would have taken too long to heal so the overseers just finished me off themselves.”

 

Jack wasn't looking at Ianto as he spoke. He had never told anyone the details of his imprisonment, not even Martha.

 

“There were some who weren't interested in sex. They just wanted to torture someone. They were the worst, they usually wanted to make it last as long as possible.”

 

It was worse than Ianto had dared to imagine. He reached over to pull Jack towards him, wanting to reassure him. “Oh Jack, I'm so sorry. But you escaped and now no one will hurt you. You know you're safe with me don't you?”

 

Jack didn't speak then, but wrapped Ianto in a hug and buried his face in Ianto's chest. They lay locked together for several minutes, while Jack worked through his distress. Eventually he released his hold on Ianto.

 

“It was hell, but it's over now. I have a new life.” With that Jack reached up to capture Ianto's lips in a long drawn out kiss.

 

Ianto broke off the kiss eventually and said sadly to Jack, “I wish you didn't have to move back to the Hub tomorrow. I'll miss you.”

 

“I'll miss you too,” agreed Jack. “I don't want to leave.”

 

“Then don't,” cried Ianto with excitement. “Move in here with me. You don't have to stay in the Hub any more now that you've got rid of the bracelets. And I wouldn't push you into anything. You can have this room as your own.”

 

Jack swallowed down the lump in his throat. It was acceptance. Jack remembered all too vividly the Doctor's reaction to him working as a whore. He had feared that Ianto would be disgusted also, would consider him too used to be acceptable as a lover. But, even now that he knew the sordid details of Jack's past, Ianto wanted him to move in.

 

Jack thought about it for a long while, considering all the implications. Should he move in with Ianto when he could move out of the Hub into his own flat? They could still see each other, but would have a buffer between them. Moving in with Ianto meant taking their relationship to a more intimate level.

 

Ianto was beginning to backtrack a little in the face of Jack's hesitation. “Of course, if you wanted we could help you get a place of your own ...”

 

He was interrupted by Jack's gentle statement, “I would be honoured to move in with you Ianto.”

 

And so a few days later Jack moved in to Ianto's flat, to start a new phase of his life.


	24. Stepping Off the Cliff

1 year later

 

After a year living with Ianto, Jack had adjusted well to normal life outside the Hub. He had become so comfortable living in normal society, that he had started to accompany the team on field missions when they needed another person. The team had been careful never to use Jack as an expendable resource, and they never asked him to take risks that they would not take themselves. He was beginning to regain some of the confidence he had had before meeting the Doctor.

 

 

Ianto was also happy living, and working, with Jack. Only one thing troubled him; the sex. Jack had come on amazingly in his confidence, when dealing with the outside world and people. However, the same could not be said of their physical relationship. Physically, their relationship had not moved on far from where it was when Jack moved in. Jack was now happy to participate in most sexual activity, as long as it did not involve penetration. However, whenever Ianto tried to move things in that direction, no matter which of them he wanted to be the recipient, Jack would freeze up.

 

Intellectuall, Ianto understood Jack's reaction, but he was saddened that Jack didn't trust him enough to take this final step. And, if he was honest with himself, he was as frustrated as hell. He was trying to be patient, but it was difficult. He was always very careful never to let Jack see this frustration.

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

Months went by and Jack was now a fully participating member of the team. He had shown his worth many times in dangerous situations in the field, but had not died since the incident with the M'ritan robot. He was still happy living with Ianto, although he had recently noticed that something was bothering him.

 

Ianto would not admit that there was anything wrong, and inwardly berated himself for being so shallow.

 

One morning, coming up for two years after he had moved in with Ianto, Jack was approaching the main Hub when he heard Ianto talking to Tosh.

 

He heard Tosh say, “Is something the matter, Ianto ? You don't look happy.”

 

Jack stopped walking and stayed where he was. He knew that Ianto had been on edge lately, but couldn't get him to say what was wrong. Perhaps he would tell Tosh.

 

“Oh, there's nothing really wrong Tosh. It's just …” he trailed off, then started again. “I shouldn't say this dammit, I shouldn't even be thinking it. It's just that Jack is still so reticent in bed, and it's been nearly two years now and we still haven't …. you know. I'm starting to think that there isn't a future for us.”

 

Tosh was shocked. “Ianto don't say that. Jack loves you.”

 

Ianto sighed. “I know he does, but we're not getting anywhere and it's so frustrating. Maybe I need to cool things with him and move on.”

 

Tosh patted his arm. “He just needs time. You can't expect him to get over his past easily.”

 

“I know,” agreed Ianto. “But maybe the lack of progress shows that I'm not the person he needs for that.”

 

Jack had frozen in place during their conversation. He was in shock, and deeply hurt. He had thought that Ianto understood him, and why he was reluctant to go further in their physical relationship. He had never got any hint that Ianto was becoming impatient. As Tosh and Ianto finished their conversation, he backed quickly away and made his escape into the archives without being seen.

 

Once in his basement office Jack slumped down into his chair. He was having difficulty believing what he'd just heard. Ianto was going to end their relationship if things didn't change. He leapt up and started pacing around the room. Could he let his years on Nirvana and the research station take away the one good thing he had found in 140 years. He loved Ianto, and Ianto loved him. If Ianto wanted complete physical intimacy couldn't he do that?

 

As he contemplated that, he found himself trembling. But the thought of losing Ianto was worse. Ianto had soothed the gaping hole in his heart, where his love for the Doctor had been torn out by the roots. There was nothing he wouldn't do for him.

 

* * * *

 

The following week, when Tosh, Ianto and Owen returned from a weevil hunt, Jack caught Ianto alone in the office. Gathering his courage, Jack smiled at him and, putting his arms around his waist, kissed him gently.

 

Shyly, and stumbling a bit over his words, Jack said “I've been thinking, Ianto. Tonight is the second anniversary of my moving into your flat. I know I've been holding back physically, but I think it's the right time for us to take the next step. It's 5pm now, why don't you finish up here and come home and I'll be waiting for you.

 

With that, Jack stepped away from Ianto and went to gather his things ready to head home.

 

He left Ianto looking and feeling completely stunned.


	25. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a historical note, this was the first fanfiction scene I ever wrote.

Ianto didn't come.

 

For an hour after he got home Jack awaited Ianto's arrival with nervous anticipation, his determination to finally overcome all his inhibitions undiminished.

 

But, as two hours passed and there was no sign of Ianto and no word from him, his resolve faltered and insecurity reared its ugly head. “He doesn't want you,” warred with “there must have been an emergency and he's been called away.” But, if Ianto arrived now, Jack knew he would no longer be able to go through with it.

 

After three hours, Jack was pacing around the room muttering to himself, “You're a fool! How could you ever think that someone like Ianto would want you, could love you? The Doctor was right. You're shop soiled, a filthy whore, damaged goods. No one in their right minds would want you.” For the first time in three years Jack felt like a whore. He had been willing to sell himself to keep Ianto, and Ianto had obviously been able to see it.

 

After four hours Jack went to the roof, after five he slit his wrists.

 

From long and bitter experience, Jack knew exactly how to cut to prolong his death as long as possible. In most of the 140 years since the Game Station, the only respites he had had from the horror of his existence were the too short times of death. The longer the dying, the longer the death. And now he tried to escape the emotional devastation he felt at Ianto's rejection the only way he knew. Bleeding out slowly was a good death. Minor pain to start with followed by floating on a cloud of numbness. And best of all, if you did it right, it took hours to die.

 

 

As dawn broke he came alive with a gasp. He hurriedly gathered the clothes he had removed the previous night. He was freezing, but it was much easier to clean blood from himself than clothes. He moved quietly down the fire escape to the flat, with trepidation. He last thing he wanted was for Ianto to discover what he had done. Fortunately, or not, as it meant that Ianto had stayed out all night, Ianto was nowhere to be seen. Jack allowed that fact to sink in, as he quickly showered.

 

Jack's thoughts were in turmoil. Despite the magnitude of what he had offered him, Ianto had not come. It was a total rejection, and showed Jack that he had been mistaken to think that Ianto loved him. In their two years together, Jack had fallen hard for Ianto. He had loved and trusted him totally. He would never have been able to offer him a full sexual relationship if he had not. But obviously (now), that love was one-sided and, knowing that, Jack could not stay with Ianto. He had spent over 100 years hanging on to a love that had never existed, and he wasn't going down that route again. He would have to leave, and immediately.

 

He quickly packed his things, just taking a few clothes. He left all the personal things that Ianto had given him. What need would he have of mementos of a man who had never loved him. He debated leaving a letter. He couldn't just disappear without a word. He knew what it was like to have that happen. But what could he say. Goodbye Ianto, I'm sorry I wasn't good enough for you, or I realised that you didn't love me. In the end he decided to leave it at Goodbye Ianto.

 

Just as he was placing his note on the hall table, Jack changed his mind. He hadn't actually talked to Ianto about the previous night. Perhaps there was an explanation. An emergency with the rift that didn't allow him to contact Jack, or come home. If he left now, without finding out, he'd always have in the back of his mind that perhaps he had been wrong and that Ianto did want him.

 

 

So 8am saw Jack arriving for work at the Hub as usual. He was in a heightened state of emotion, anticipating the encounter with Ianto with fear and longing. But his years of imprisonment had equipped him with the ability to show nothing of what he was feeling in his body language, or on his face.

 

 

Ianto was in his office. Jack made coffee and took it up to him. “I missed you last night,” he said quietly, giving no sign of the momentous importance of that statement. Ianto looked up. “Oh right, sorry, I should have let you know. I had lots of paperwork I wanted to catch up on.” Jack managed to smile and say “of course no problem,” while inwardly his last hope was destroyed.

 

With his heart broken, Jack got through a few more hours in the Hub, before excusing himself for an early lunch. He returned quickly to the flat, weighted his note down with the watch that Ianto had given him after Jack saved his life, grabbed his bag and left. He debated where to go. He couldn't stay in Cardiff and, though he thought it unlikely that Ianto would bother to look for him, just in case, he did he didn't want to do anything too obvious. Having been paid by Torchwood for over two years, he could empty his bank account, and have enough money to get somewhere to live and last several months. But he'd need to find work of some sort eventually.

 

He briefly considered going to find Martha. He knew from what she had told him on the research station that she came from this time period, and he had used Torchwood's resources to look her up. He knew where she lived and worked. But he was too early. She wouldn't even have met the Doctor yet, never mind him. But London was the biggest city around, and he would be able to get lost there. So, three years after falling through the rift to Cardiff and being found by Torchwood, Jack melted away, aiming for London.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm now going to hide. Please don't kill me !
> 
> Ianto's POV will come in the next chapter.


	26. Moving On

Ianto stood in his hallway in shock, clutching Jack's note. He knew that he had handled things very badly. Jack had offered him what he had wanted for the past two years, but his timing had been awful. Although he loved Jack, Ianto was halfway to convincing himself that he was not the right person to help Jack, and had been thinking that he needed to cool things between them. When Jack had made his offer, Ianto had found himself paralysed by indecision. On the one hand he did desperately want it, on the other he thought it wasn't fair to take advantage of Jack, when he was no longer sure of his own feelings. And he could hardly believe that Jack was really ready for this so suddenly.

 

Ianto had dithered for so long, that three hours had passed without him even realising. It had become too late to act, even if he had made a decision. He had then been too embarrassed to go home and face Jack. When Jack had spoken to him the next morning, very calmly, he'd been so flustered he'd made a pathetic excuse about paperwork. Why couldn't he just have told him the truth! Deep down, Ianto knew why. It was typical ostrich mentality. He had hoped that he and Jack could get past that night by pretending it had never happened. Apart from that very mild comment, when he arrived at work, Jack had seemed to be doing the same, or so he had thought.

 

And now Jack was gone, and who could blame him. He obviously didn't want Ianto, or the team, to know where he had gone. Ianto was just glad that Jack could now function fairly normally in society, and had money. But he was not going to let things lie. This was all his fault, and he would find Jack and make it up to him. He would track where Jack had gone, with Torchwood resources, and when he found him he would ask him to return to Torchwood. If Jack no longer wanted him he would respect that, but the least he could do was make sure he was safe.

 

Now he had to go and tell Tosh and Owen. They were going to kill him.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

Jack found a bedsit to rent in the east end of London, and went out to find himself a job. He wanted to keep a low profile, so cash in hand was what he was looking for. He soon found himself a job cleaning up in the kitchens of a small restaurant. It didn't pay well, but it was enough to keep him going if he lived frugally, and that should not be a problem. He kept himself to himself as much as he could, refusing offers to go out boozing (as they put it) with the other restaurant workers.

 

He did indulge himself and go see Martha (from a distance). He watched her going to the university where she was studying medicine. But he made sure she didn't notice him. He couldn't risk meeting her before the research station. He knew that in a couple of years she would be picked up by the Doctor, and he wanted to warn her that the Doctor couldn't be trusted and not to go with him. But his time agent training had instilled in him a deep respect for paradoxes, so he said nothing. He hoped that the Doctor would eventually bring her back to London, and he would be able to contact her then.

 

The main problem with living alone, and not socialising, was the amount of brooding time it left him. He went over and over in his head how he could have misconstrued things so badly with Ianto. He had thought they were in love, even though physically things were low key. He had certainly loved Ianto, and still did. He had thought Ianto loved him, and understood his reticence with the physical aspect of things. And, if he did understand, he couldn't have missed the massive significance of what Jack had at last offered him. To turn him down, without even bothering to tell him directly, with the excuse of (non-existent) paperwork was just incomprehensible to Jack.

 

And this inevitably led to wondering what he had done to the Doctor, to make him abandon him on Satellite 5 and then again on Nirvana. They had been lovers, and Jack had believed with all his heart that the Doctor loved him. Surely being resurrected, and thereby being “wrong” through no fault of his own, could not kill any love that had been there, and lead the Doctor to treat him worse than he would treat a random stranger.

 

Jack was left with only one conclusion. He had been wrong in both cases. The Doctor had never loved him, and neither had Ianto. And also that, contrary to what he had thought about Ianto's opinion, they were both repulsed by the whore he had become, however unwillingly. In the cold light of day he could see that the Doctor had been right, only shop soiled was too kind a term. One client per week for over 100 years added up to a hell of a lot of use, and that ignored the guards at the research station and the Pleasure Palace.

 

But he was not going to let this happen again. He was done with love. He wouldn't be fooled a third time.

 

With his books and music, Jack lived in peaceful, but lonely, obscurity in his bedsit for seven months before trouble arrived.

 

* * * * *

 

Jack had worked his shift at the restaurant, as usual, when he felt that he was being watched. He looked around surreptitiously, but couldn't see anyone who appeared out of place. However, in the old days (pre-Satellite 5) Jack had learned to trust his instincts and, though they were now rusty through disuse, he would not dismiss them out of hand.

 

Instead of heading straight back to his bedsit, Jack turned down a narrow alley, that he knew led out into the main street at the far end. If anyone was following him, they couldn't remain hidden in the alley.

 

No one followed. Jack breathed a sigh of relief and continued down the main street. But he couldn't shake the uncomfortable feeling, so headed into a department store. He spotted a man he thought was behaving in a suspicious way in the men's clothing department, so rode up the escalator and ran swiftly down the stairs again and out into the street. The man did not follow.

 

I must be getting paranoid, he thought. I'm panicking over nothing. But he still couldn't shake the feeling. Was it possible that Ianto had come to look for him ? He shook off that thought. He'd been very careful not to leave a paper trail and anyway, why would he do that after all this time? He spent the next hour weaving in and out of shops, down alleys, and crossing busy roads. Eventually when he was positive that no one was following him he finally headed home.

 

They cornered him about halfway there. There were six of them, in radio contact with each other, which is why they hadn't needed to follow him. They'd chosen the perfect place to do it. A quiet street, off the beaten track. No witnesses.

 

Jack was panicking in earnest now. Ianto wouldn't send heavies after him, he'd come himself. So who were they? Was it possible that Astratech had come after him? They were trying to develop time travel, hence the rift experiments. But they would have no way of tracking when or where the rift had sent him, so it wasn't really conceivable that it would be them.

 

Had someone found out that he couldn't die ? The Torchwood team were the only ones who knew that. And surely they wouldn't have said anything. His heart was in his mouth now. If they knew about that then he had to get away! He couldn't become an un-killable experiment again.

 

All this flashed through his mind in a second. Then he launched himself at the two men covering the end of the street. He managed to overpower them, but another two came up behind him. They were both armed with stun guns. It only took seconds after that for the men to overpower him. The instant that they had, a transit van drove up and they bundled Jack's unconscious body into it.

 

By the time they arrived at their destination, Jack was conscious again. He was petrified. Two of the men dragged Jack out of the van, and hauled him up some stairs at the delivery entrance of a very posh house. The other four followed behind them.

 

Dragging him through the kitchens, and into the main part of the house, the heavies threw Jack to his knees in front of a man he didn't recognise. The man was fairly ordinary looking, he wouldn't stand out in a crowd, but something about him struck Jack as terrifying.

 

He smiled at Jack, throwing his arms out expansively. “Welcome, I've been looking forward to meeting you.”

 

“Who are you?” Jack whispered.

 

“Oh, how remiss of me,” replied the man. “My name is Harold Saxon, but you can call me Master.”


	27. Memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU the Doctor still found the Master at the end of the Universe and the Master still stole the TARDIS and ended up in London as Harold Saxon (my version of Utopia will be covered in an upcoming chapter). This chapter takes place in the 18 months the Master was on Earth before being elected prime minister.

Ianto sighed and rubbed his eyes, his vision was beginning to blur. As was usual, in any free time he had he was searching CCTV images. Jack had been gone for months and he still hadn't found him. Jack had done a good job of disappearing. None of his documentation had been used since he had left, not his passport, driving license or NI number. That left Ianto with only one option, using face recognition software on CCTV images from all round the UK. And it was horribly inaccurate. He was inundated with possible sightings of Jack. The only way to check was to trawl through each of the images himself. Tosh and Owen had been helping, but there were thousands, and a huge backlog was mounting up.

 

Ianto got up to make himself a coffee, then returned to his laptop to flick through yet more blurry images of handsome, dark haired, men. After another hour, his heart leapt. That one! That was Jack. It had been taken two months previously, in London on Mile End Road. Ianto quickly ran a search on all the images he had on file to check, looking for those taken within a five mile radius of that CCTV camera. There were over fifty of them, but a couple were definitely Jack. At last. Now he had a place to start looking.

 

* * * * * *

 

Harold Saxon walked around Jack, inspecting him like a bug under a microscope. “So, you are the one I've been feeling whenever I drive through the East End. You're positively unnatural. You'll have to explain to me how you got like this.”

 

In addition to being absolutely terrified, Jack was also confused. No one but the Doctor had been able to feel his “wrongness” before. If the Doctor's people weren't all dead, Jack would think it was another Time Lord.

 

Jack decided to play dumb. “Like what?” he asked. “I've no idea what you are talking about.”

 

The Master was not amused. He backhanded Jack across the face, sending him sprawling to the floor. “Oh you know exactly what I'm talking about,” he hissed malevolently. “I can feel the time vortex in you. And you disgust my time sense.”

 

“Now tell me how you got like this !” he ordered. His demeanor had totally changed from his original joviality, to powerful and terrifying.

 

When given an order like this, by a powerful man, who claimed to be his Master, Jack's 135 years of conditioning snapped straight back into place. The mental freedom he had gained during his 3 years at Torchwood couldn't stand up to it.

 

Cringing and petrified, Jack could only stammer, “I don't know.”

 

Needless to say, the Master was not pleased with that reply. Striding back over to Jack, who had struggled back to a kneeling position, he grasped Jack's head in both his hands. Arranging his fingertips at Jack's temples he said “Let's have a proper look, shall we?” and dove into his mind.

 

Jack had had some psychic training at the Time Agency, and had some mental blocks, but they were like tissue paper to the Master. He went rigid under the onslaught as the Master burned through his mind, looking for the reason he was unnatural. Eventually the Master zeroed in on the events at Satellite 5, rifling through the memories systematically. Finally satisfied, the Master withdrew and released Jack. In all it had taken half an hour.

 

As he was released Jack fell forward, trembling and in a state of shock.

 

The Master, on the other hand, was practically dancing in his excitement. “So, you really don't know what happened. But you are one of the Doctor's little pets, so it must have something to do with him. Oh, and what he abandoned you to! It's too delicious.”

 

He turned to his henchmen, and ordered them to take Jack to the room that had been prepared for him.

 

“We'll get better acquainted later,” he said to Jack, “ there's so many more of your memories I want to look at. But governmental affairs beckon. Work to do before it's back to the fun.”

 

* * * * *

 

Jack was taken to one of the higher floors, and locked into a pleasant, medium-sized room. It contained a king-sized bed and a table, and had a small bathroom en-suite. There were bars over the only window.

 

Jack was in despair. He could see all the progress he had made in throwing off his conditioning disappearing. If he didn't get away from this man very soon, he would fall back into the slave mentality. It was happening already!

 

He went over to the window and yanked on the bars as hard as he could, but they wouldn't budge. He then tried the door, but it was a very solid doo,r with an even more solid lock. Both door and lock were probably custom made. His only chance to escape would be when someone came into the room.

 

As Jack waited, he pondered his captor. Could he possibly be a Time Lord? He was telepathic like the Doctor and, although the Doctor had never invaded his mind like that, who was to say that he wasn't capable of it. The Master had mentioned a time sense, and the time vortex, which would make sense if he was a Time Lord. He even seemed to know the Doctor, which made it very likely. So the Doctor must have been wrong that they had all died. Jack couldn't bring himself to be pleased about that.

 

After several hours, during which Jack's tension level went through the roof, he heard someone approaching the door. This was it, his best chance to escape. As the man unlocked the door and started into the room, Jack slammed the door into him, knocking him out. He ran out of the door ready to tackle the next person, and came face to face with the Master. There were no other guards, so if he could just get past the Master he might escape.

 

Jack lunged at the Master, who just grinned and blocked him. He spun Jack around, holding his arm up behind his back on the verge of breaking. He was far stronger than a human, and Jack had no chance against him. The Master pushed Jack back into his room and threw him onto the bed. He turned and activated the lock on the door with his laser screwdriver. He held it up for Jack to see saying “Isomorphic controls, it only works for me, so don't go getting any ideas.”

 

With that, he pinned Jack to the bed with his body and raised his hand to Jack's temple. “Let's have a more leisurely stroll down Memory Lane shall we?” he said with a smirk.

 

Jack struggled to move the Master's hand away but failed, and again the Master invaded his mind.

 

 

The first thing the Master encountered in Jack's mind was a huge black pit. Formed of despair, decades of humiliation and abuse, the pain of rejection and feelings of worthlessness and self loathing, it projected an overwhelming desire to die. The Master had gone straight past it in his search for the reason for Jack's immortality before, but now he looked more closely. The one bright area across the pit was a bridge, formed with Jack's memories of his time in Cardiff at Torchwood. The bridge was damaged at one end, but still strong.

 

 

This time the Master moved slowly through Jack's memories. Disregarding some and concentrating on others. He saw through Jack's eyes Jack's history with the Doctor, when they were lovers, the way the Doctor had sent Jack on what was effectively a suicide mission. The Master saw how the Doctor had treated Jack after he was resurrected, and how he had been condemned to a hellish immortal life. He also saw how Jack became an obedient slave in the Pleasure Palaces for over a century.

 

Letting go of Jack's temple after several hours had passed, the Master lay back next to him on the bed with a smile on his face. He couldn't believe his luck. Finding one of the Doctor's cast offs who was so mentally traumatised that a little mental push. and a minor show of dominance, would return him to the obedient slave he had been until recently. And he was a fully trained pleasure slave, amongst other things. The fact that he was “wrong” was a minor inconvenience that the Master was sure he could get used to. It was easily made up for by the fact that his new toy was indestructible, though that wasn't his main interest. This man had been the Doctor's lover, and was now an expert in all things sexual. The Master was a hedonist and he couldn't wait to try all the possibilities. And he was really looking forward to telling the Doctor all about it in great detail when they next met.

 

The Master stood up and looked down at Jack, who was still recovering from the mental invasion.

Time for a little dominance.

 

“Get off the bed and kneel to me,” he ordered sternly.

 

And Jack did.


	28. The Worst Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning disturbing content, non-con.
> 
>  
> 
> If anyone would like me to post a version of this chapter with all the relevant plot details but without the disturbing non-con scene please let me know and I will do so. In that case don't read any further in this post.

Those in the household who truly knew the Master were surprised at how gently he treated his new acquisition, after the first day. They had expected the Master to be violent with him, but he was not. The Master wanted a totally subservient slave, and would use extreme violence to break someone to be that. However, Jack had already been broken and conditioned to instant obedience over decades, so there was no need. He was already exactly what the Master wanted.

 

Months went by and the Master made full use of his new toy, spending almost every night with him. He was in heaven. Jack was truly expert at all things sexual, and the most mind blowing shag he'd ever had. It was all the sweeter because he was the Doctor's ex-lover. The Master had replayed Jack's memories of making love with the Doctor many times, while fucking Jack himself. On most occasions however, he did not force Jack to relive memories while they had sex, preferring Jack to be aware of exactly who he was with.

 

Usually the Master was gentle during sex, however, when things went wrong for him in his plans to take over the country and he became angry, he was a different person. Even then the Master never hurt Jack physically. There was no need. Jack's mind was full of so many horrific memories that, when he felt in that mood, the Master could just rifle through them and replay them in Jack's head. His favourite memory was the time when Jack had tried to refuse his client, about 50 years into his tenure at the Pleasure Palaces.

 

* * * *

 

 

Year 200,159

 

Normally completely obedient, the sight of an Yttrian waiting for him in the suite terrified Jack so much that he fled from the room in panic. He didn't get far. The guards that had escorted him to the pleasure suite quickly grabbed him, and held him still, while they contacted the Overseer.

 

Jack was in a blind panic, chanting, “no, no, no,” over and over.

 

When the Overseer arrived she briefly looked at Jack, before going into the suite to discuss the situation with the client.

 

When she emerged, she told the guards “The client has agreed to accept him unwilling. Take him to suite 401 and secure him.”

 

Hearing this, Jack screamed and increased his struggles tenfold. But it was no good. The guards gave a quick burst with the bracelets, that floored him, and then dragged him to the other suite.

When they got there, they stripped him completely then manhandled Jack over to a metal table, and, bending him over it face down, they fastened his hands to metal cuffs at two corners of the table and his ankles to the opposite legs of the table. In this position he had a small amount of movement, but not enough to avoid whatever the client wanted to do to him. The table height had been chosen to suit the Yttrian client.

 

When the Yttrian was ushered into the room and asked if everything was as he required, Jack became practically incoherent with panic, begging and pleading with him not to do it. But his pleas fell on deaf ears and, after the Pleasure Palace staff left, the Yttrian stripped off his robe. He moved towards Jack from behind and gently caressed his back. Jack screamed in pain as the Yttrian's touch blistered and burned him. The Yttrian moved away for a moment, to reach for the lube, which sizzled as he slicked himself up. He then moved back behind Jack and, grasping him firmly by the hips, thrust deeply into him.

 

Jack's screams redoubled as the firm grip and pressure on his thighs and buttocks caused his skin to char. The internal agony was too acute to bear. He writhed desperately, trying to get away, but he couldn't do so. He screamed himself hoarse as the Yttrian continued to thrust. Yttrians liked sex slow and it seemed like hours to Jack until finally the Yttrian trembled and found his release, falling forward across Jack's back as he did so, searing his skin. As the red hot stream of the Yttrian's release shot into him, Jack convulsed violently. He lay trembling uncontrollably and moaning in agony after his client pulled out and readied himself to leave.

 

When the Yttrian had left, the guards came in and cut his throat.

 

One of the Master's favourite games, when he was angry, was to take Jack from behind while he replayed this memory, and to find his release at the very moment the convulsions hit Jack. It was exquisite.

 

* * *

 

Though his current situation was definitely an improvement over the Pleasure Palaces, and the Astratech research station, Jack was falling into a major depression. His few years of freedom at Torchwood had reminded him of what life should be like, but he seemed destined never to achieve that. All he could see ahead of him was never ending slavery. If he escaped one master there would always be someone wanting an immortal slave or an experimental subject. His one desperate wish in life was to become mortal again, even if it meant his immediate death.

 

His one solace was the TARDIS. He didn't know how but the Master had her in the house and, although Jack had not seen her, she sang to him in his mind when the Master would not notice. Unlike the Doctor, and despite what the Doctor had said, the TARDIS did not show any aversion to him. She understood his pain and tried to soothe him. In her caresses of his mind were traces of guilt, though Jack didn't understand why. The Doctor did not seem to be present which made no sense, given the TARDIS's presence, but for which Jack was very grateful.

 


	29. Jack and the TARDIS

A month after he had found the CCTV images, Ianto had finally got the chance to take seven days leave from Torchwood. He didn't like to leave Tosh and Owen alone to guard the rift, but the predictor program had shown that upcoming activity would be low key for several days. He had gone down to London to look for Jack. He started on the Mile End road, going in every shop, pub and restaurant he could find, asking if anyone had seen Jack. He was starting to despair, and was having to widen his search radius, when he finally struck lucky. A restaurant owner had admitted to hiring Jack. The owner was reluctant to talk at first, as he hadn't been filing the required legal paperwork for an employee, but eventually believed that Ianto was not interested in getting him prosecuted. He told Ianto that Jack had worked for him for several months before failing to turn up one day. That had been three months ago and he hadn't seen him since.

 

Despite his best efforts Ianto had been unable to find anyone who had seen Jack since then, and he had to return to Cardiff. His plan now was to search all the downloaded CCTV footage within 20 miles of the restaurant, beginning the day that Jack had last been at work, and hope to find a clue to where he had gone. His task was hampered by the fact that only a few of the CCTV cameras stored the images for a significant length of time, leaving big holes in the coverage of the area around the restaurant.

 

* * * * * *

 

 

The Master had been the Minister for Defence for 14 months now. His plan to become Prime Minister was well under way. The TARDIS however was causing trouble. There seemed to be a problem in one of the temporal manifolds and the Master needed help to fix it. Once that was fixed he would turn his attention to sorting out the fused controls. He planned to install his paradox machine and test it in the next few weeks, and he wanted the TARDIS in top shape before then. In the absence of the Doctor, there was only one person capable of understanding the technology enough to help, and that was Jack.

 

That night as he lay next to Jack, the Master entered his mind and searched for the memories of when he travelled with the Doctor. He examined in great detail everything Jack did to help the Doctor with maintenance. He also looked for memories of Jack piloting the TARDIS, and was pleased to find none.

 

The next day the Master ordered Jack to accompany him out of his room to the basement. Jack was understandably worried by this, as he had almost never left his room in all the time he'd been with the Master. Without hesitation, but with plenty of inner panic, Jack dutifully followed the Master.

 

When they arrived in the basement Jack was overjoyed to see the TARDIS, the first time since he had seen her leaving without him on Satellite 5. He didn't let his joy show, however, merely waiting for the Master to tell him what to do.

 

The Master ordered him to go inside. Jack started to obey, but hesitated as he got to the door. From what the Doctor had said, the TARDIS should react badly to him. Just because she seemed to accept him at a distance didn't mean she would when he was this close. As he stood there though, the TARDIS called to him to come inside. Jack had to hold back tears of happiness as the TARDIS welcomed him. The Doctor had been wrong. Jack could feel the TARDIS's sorrow and apology as she trilled to him.

 

They went inside and the Master instructed him to open up a panel and check the connections for the wiring. “I know you know how to do this,” the Master said. “Just make sure you do it right.”

 

“Yes, Master,” replied Jack.

 

He proceeded to do as he was asked, revelling in the gentle connection of the TARDIS in his mind, so different to the brutal onslaught of the Master. She stopped whenever the Master came to inspect the work, but Jack was doing a good job and he left to carry on his own tasks in the TARDIS after a quick inspection each time.

 

All too soon the tasks were done and the Master took Jack back up to his room and left him there.

 

Over the next few weeks, Jack helped the Master with the TARDIS many times. The Master thought it unlikely that Jack would sabotage anything, but made sure he never left Jack alone in the TARDIS. Jack and the TARDIS were quietly bonding as he worked. The TARDIS managed to prevent the Master noticing, shielding that part of Jack's mind from his view.


	30. Utopia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A large chunk of this chapter is adapted from the episode Utopia.

As the TARDIS landed on Theta Aurigae IV, in the year one billion, she had barely materialised when the wave of black hate and insanity hit her. And it was coming closer, fast. The TARDIS started dematerialising immediately, but the horror was going to be too quick. It touched her just before she became insubstantial and she flung herself away as far as she could get, fleeing to the end of the universe in her terror. Thankfully the horror was left far behind.

 

* * * * * *

 

The TARDIS had finally landed, in the year 300 trillion. The Doctor picked himself off the floor, where he had ended up during the wild ride. “What was all that about, eh?” he asked her. “What scared you so badly that you brought us all the way out here?”

 

I should leave, the Doctor thought. I should go, I should really, really go. But he could never resist exploring the unknown, and you didn't often get a chance to see the end of the universe. A quick look around wouldn't hurt.

 

Fifteen minutes later the Doctor was exploring the region around the TARDIS. As he was admiring a hive-like structure he saw, in the distance, a man running. The man was being pursued by a horde of unfriendly, dangerous looking humanoids. The Doctor couldn't resist. He ran down to join the fleeing man and, turning, aimed his sonic screwdriver at his pursuers. He set it to a particular mode and activated it. All the pursuers clapped their hands over their ears and fell to the ground.

 

The Doctor was about to take the hunted man to the TARDIS to check him over, when a dozen more of the humanoids charged towards them, effectively cutting them off from the TARDIS. The first group of them were recovering and climbing to their feet.

 

The hunted man said urgently, “We have to get to the silo, run!”

 

They got there just ahead of the hostile humanoids and, after showing their teeth, were allowed inside.

 

“Professor we've got two new humans inside. One of them is calling himself a Doctor,” the silo guard informed Professor Yana.

 

The Professor sounded delighted and immediately asked what the Doctor was a doctor of.

He was even more delighted to be told that the Doctor was a doctor of everything.

 

Meanwhile the Doctor was trying to persuade one of the guards to fetch the TARDIS for him. “It's like a box, a big blue box, I'm sorry but I really need it back, it's stuck out there.”

 

Eventually the guard agreed, “A blue box you say? We're driving out for the last water collection, I'll see what I can do.”

 

As he was escorted through the complex towards Professor Yana's laboratory, they passed many people, all ragged and unwashed. The Doctor was just extolling the virtues of humanity when they passed someone who smelled different, at least to the Doctor's Time Lord senses. The Doctor stopped and approached the man who, on being singled out, reacted violently and snarled revealing pointed teeth. Panic erupted in all the nearby humans who screamed and backed away rapidly. Fortunately for them, the guards escorting the Doctor were armed, and well used to dealing with the Futurekind. The interloper was dead within seconds.

 

“There was no need for that,” the Doctor shouted angrily.

 

“There was,” one of the guards answered resolutely, “he could have killed any number of our people.”

 

Leaving one of their number to arrange to have the body removed, the Doctor's escort continued on to the Professor's rooms. The Professor rushed over to introduce himself and his assistant Chantho.

He then explained the workings of the rocket he was building to the Doctor, and asked for his help.

 

While the Doctor was examining the equipment, Yana asked a question. “Might I ask, what species are you?”

 

“Time Lord, last of,” the Doctor replied. “Heard of them? Legend or anything?”

 

“Not even a myth! Blimey, the end of the universe is a bit humbling.”

 

“The man who was being hunted mentioned Utopia,” said the Doctor, “So what is Utopia ?”

 

The Professor was surprised by the question. “Oh every human has heard of Utopia, where have you been?”

 

“Bit of a hermit, no friends,” the Doctor explained. It was only too true. He hadn't had a friend since Martha left him. “So, Utopia?” he continued.

 

“The call came from across the stars, over and over again. Come to Utopia,” explained the Professor. He pointed at the screen, “originating from that point, out towards the wild lands in the dark matter reefs, calling us in. The last of the humans scattered across the night.”

 

“What do you think is out there?” the Doctor asked.

 

“We don't know. A colony, a city, some sort of haven? The science foundation created the Utopia project thousand of years ago, to preserve mankind. To find a way of surviving beyond the collapse of reality itself. Perhaps they found it and perhaps not. It's worth a look don't you think?” asked the Professor.

 

“Oh yes.” replied the Doctor.

 

The Professor suddenly lost his focus and stood unseeing as he heard drums beat in his head.

 

“Professor, are you all right?” queried the Doctor.

 

Coming back to himself the Professor babbled “yes, I'm fine. And busy.” He began to bustle around trying to look as if he really was busy.

 

The Doctor looked at him in understanding. “Except that rocket is not going to fly is it? This footprint mechanism thing is not working.”

 

“We'll find a way,” the Professor stressed.

 

“You're stuck on this planet and you haven't told them have you?” the Doctor said with sudden insight. “That lot out there, they still think they're going to fly.”

 

“Well it's better to let them live in hope,” the Professor admitted.

 

“Quite right too,” the Doctor said, while bouncing around the room. “And I must say Professor Yana, this new science is well beyond me. But all the same, a boost reversal circuit in any time frame must be a circuit which reverses the boost. So I wonder what would happen if I did this.”

As he spoke the Doctor picked up the circuit and zapped it with the sonic screwdriver. Suddenly the machinery started up.

 

“Chan it's working doh,” cried Chantho in amazement.

 

“How did you do that?” asked the Professor.

 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I'm brilliant,” said the Doctor with a distinct lack of modesty.

 

Now that the rocket was functional, things began to move fast. The complex was a hive of activity. The couplings were connected. All the passengers were ordered to board, and everyone was recalled from outside the compound. One of the last groups to return brought the TARDIS with them and delivered it to the Professor's laboratory before going to board the rocket themselves.

 

Meanwhile, in the Professor's laboratory, the Doctor had realised that the footprint engine couldn't be activated from on board. The Professor and Chantho were planning to stay behind. Indicating the TARDIS the Doctor said “Professor, its a wild stab in the dark but I might just have found you a way out. This is a TARDIS. It travels in time and space.”

 

As the Professor looked, the drums began to beat loudly and he heard whisperings of TARDIS and Time Lord. While the Doctor and Chantho ran around linking cables from the TARDIS to the Professor's equipment, the Professor sat weakly, unable to ignore the noise in his head.

 

Since the Professor was ill, the Doctor headed down to help the engineers with the final preparations. Meanwhile, in the control room, the Professor was still hearing voices. Eventually Yana tracked the voices to his watch and he slowly raised it up and gazed at it. As Chantho watched he opened it. As the Doctor launched the rocket, a golden glow flooded out of the watch and surrounded the Professor. When the glow disappeared Chantho cautiously approached the Professor, who had turned to face the TARDIS with his back to her. He turned and fixed her with a cruel piercing gaze.

 

Chantho watched horrified as the Professor reached out and pulled the lever that closed and locked the doors to the engineering section, preventing the Doctor from returning. When the Professor pulled the lever that controlled the power for the outer compound's defences, and headed for the controls of the inner defence systems, Chantho had to stop him. She pulled a gun on him and, trembling, ordered him to stop. He turned, and grasping the broken power cable, approached her. Despite his actions Chantho still could not bring herself to shoot him. She couldn't believe that he would really hurt her. It was a fatal mistake. As he thrust the live end of the cable at her, he sneered, “I am the Master.”

 

The Doctor was working his way back to the laboratory via a different route, as the Futurekind poured into the grounds of the complex. However, to their frustration, they were unable to breach the main building itself. The Doctor finally found his way to the laboratory, only to find that that door was locked as well. He could see through the glass that the Professor was disconnecting the cables from the TARDIS, and he worked at the locking mechanism frantically. He could feel in the telepathic centres of his brain that something had changed, that he was no longer alone. But why wouldn't the Professor let him in?

 

Horrified, he spotted Chantho lying on the floor. As he watched, she raised herself with difficulty onto one elbow and shot the Professor. The Doctor smashed the door's mechanism and finally managed to get inside the lab. The Professor, who the Doctor could now tell was a Time Lord, and one Time Lord in particular, was standing wounded in front of the TARDIS's open door. Before he could reach them the Professor had ducked inside and locked the door. Try as he might the Doctor could not open the TARDIS with his key, nor by using his sonic screwdriver.

 

As he tried, the Professor staggered over to the console. He could hear the Doctor shouting to him from outside the TARDIS. He was pleading to be let in, saying that they were the only ones left. The Professor, now the Master, stood proudly next to the console as he died and the fires of regeneration swept through him. The Doctor could only watch the glow from the regeneration energy from outside the TARDIS.

 

Moments later the Master spoke to him from inside the TARDIS. The Doctor pleaded with the Master to wait and talk to him, to no avail. In desperation, as the TARDIS began to dematerialise, the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver and prepared to fuse the controls. In a fraction of a second he considered the options. He could fuse the controls to limit the TARDIS to move only between this point and the last place and time she visited. But that was Theta Aurigae IV, and the TARDIS had been so afraid of something there that she fled to the end of the universe. He couldn't force her to return there. The only other option was to use the emergency program coordinates. These had been set to return Martha to Earth, one hour after she left, in the event of anything happening to him. Even though she had left him months previously, he had travelled with no one else, so the coordinates were still set to London 2007. That was the better option, so the Doctor fused the TARDIS controls using those coordinates. And then he watched helplessly as the TARDIS faded away.

 

* * * * * *

 

The Doctor was fuming as he prepared to activate his vortex manipulator. Two years it had taken him to build it out of the materials left in Professor Yana's laboratory. Two years! He'd practically built it out of spaghetti, string and staples. It was hardly elegant and was huge (about one foot across). He couldn't help comparing it to the vortex manipulator that Jack had. That was elegant and would have been incredibly useful to have when marooned at the end of the universe.

 

But beggars couldn't be choosers and he hoped that he would only need to use it once to be reunited with his TARDIS. Although it had been so long since the TARDIS had left, there had been no other vortex activity on Malcassairo since then. He had designed it so that the home made manipulator would put him onto the path that the TARDIS had made when it left. Although he knew approximately where the TARDIS had gone, it was such a huge journey through time that the Master could have arrived in London any time within a couple of years of the fused coordinates.

Following the path should take him straight to it, much more accurately, arriving within minutes of the Master. Hoping that the delicate components would hold out through the journey he activated it and fell through the vortex.

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

The Doctor screamed as the manipulator began to spark and overheat as he fell. He was blacking out when the machine failed completely, spitting him out of the vortex abruptly. When he woke he was in horrible pain, lying on grass in a park. He could do nothing but lay there for several minutes, gasping for breath as the pain gradually receded. Finally he was able to get up, look around, and try to work out where he was. He knew he hadn't reached his destination, but if he was close there would still be a chance of finding the TARDIS. He had fallen out of the vortex too early and he'd been travelling backwards in time, so the TARDIS should hopefully already be here. At least providing that the Master had stayed where (or at least when) he originally landed, and not managed to fix the TARDIS and move on. If that had happened it was probable that the TARDIS was lost to the Doctor forever.

 

The Doctor didn't let himself dwell on that possibility. He had to be close enough, he had to! Fortunately he wouldn't have to wonder for long. In the two years stuck on Malcassairo he had also built himself a TARDIS detector. He couldn't take the risk of not being able to find the TARDIS after following it through the vortex. This fortunately was much smaller than the manipulator, so he had it in a pocket. Getting it out, and swiftly checking it for damage, he activated it and sagged in relief when it showed that a TARDIS was present. It was hundreds of miles away, but what was that after a trillion years and billions of parsecs. Leaving the ruins of the manipulator on the ground he set off.  



	31. Home Truths

Ianto ran down to the main Hub in triumph, yelling for Tosh and Owen. As they came running he explained in excitement. “I think I know what happened to Jack! I've traced his movements on the CCTV to an alley. He walked in but never came out. Instead, this van comes up at the other end, stops out of view of the CCTV and then 10 minutes later drives off. He had to have been inside. It's the only explanation.”

 

Tosh was also excited. “So you think if we can track the van we'll find out where he ended up.”

 

“Yes,” agreed Ianto, “can you do that? Jack must be in trouble and we need to help him.”

 

“I'll get on it right away,” Tosh confirmed. “And don't worry Ianto, we'll help him wherever he is.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * *

 

The Doctor stood outside the mansion watching. He had tracked the TARDIS to this house in Kensington and, using his TARDIS key as a perception filter, had watched the comings and goings for several days. He had seen the Master on several occasions, and had his security setup pretty much sussed. He knew how many guards there were, when their shifts changed and the best time to sneak into the house.

 

Now he was just waiting for dusk to put his plan into action. His plan had been complicated by the skin crawling wrongness he felt from within the house. This simultaneously made him extremely relieved, and made his heart sink. It seemed as though Jack had not died in the rift, as he had feared. The Doctor was incredibly thankful for this, and hoped one day to tell Martha that Jack had survived. If he ever saw Martha again that is. The sinking feeling he had was the thought of having to see Jack again. He owed him a massive apology, and apologies were one of the few things he wasn't good at (was lousy at if he was honest with himself). But what was Jack doing here with the TARDIS? He had expected the Master, since he had stolen the TARDIS, but why Jack ? This could not be a good situation.

 

The Doctor had debated carrying on with his original plan, which was to head straight for the TARDIS and steal it back. But Martha had opened his eyes to the horrible way he had treated Jack, and he could not abandon him again. If he was with the Master he most probably needed rescuing. He would get Jack and they would both get away in the TARDIS.

Mind made up, the Doctor quietly entered the house, relying on the perception filter to ensure he was unobserved.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

The Doctor regained consciousness in a small room. He was alone. With a groan he remembered approaching the part of the house where Jack was, and meeting the Master and four of his guards. The Master had sneered at him for thinking that the perception filter would ever work on him, and had expressed surprise that he was aiming for Jack and not the TARDIS. He seemed entirely too well informed about the Doctor's attitude to Jack for comfort. The Doctor was saved from further self-castigation by the sound of voices outside the room. Moments later the door was unlocked and the Master entered, flanked by two guards.

 

“Ah Doctor,” he said pleasantly, “back with us I see. Welcome to my humble abode.”

 

The Doctor snorted, “ it's anything but humble.”

 

“You're right of course,” confirmed the Master. “We're at my London mansion. A house befitting the Minister of Defence of Great Britain.”

 

The Doctor was shocked. “How can you be the Minister of Defence?” he asked with disbelief. “You've only been here a short while.”

 

The Master laughed, “I'm afraid you have your timings a little out, I've been here over a year. Plenty of time to infiltrate the higher echelons.”

 

Leaving aside the Master's political ambitions for the moment, the Doctor asked the question he had to ask, while dreading the answer. “Why is Jack here ?”

 

The Master's face lit up. “I was hoping you'd ask that,” he beamed. “You felt him I suppose.”

 

“Yes,” agreed the Doctor.

 

“I really have to thank you,” said the Master, “he's absolutely amazing. I couldn't believe it when I found him, and it's all down to you. He's the perfect conditioned slave and fantastic in bed.” He looked into the distance for a moment wistfully, “the things that man can do with his tongue and his internal muscles, it's incredible.”

 

The Doctor's mind was still reeling at the implication that Jack was the Master's sex slave, so it took him a moment to process the rest of what the Master had said.

 

“Down to me! No!”

 

“Oh Doctor, don't be so modest,” said the Master, “I've had him for months now and I've been through practically all his memories. You abandoned him on Satellite 5 which led directly to him being sold to the Nirvanans to work in the Pleasure Palaces. In the years they had him, they conditioned him into total obedience and made him a hell of a good lay. Though he wasn't too bad before, was he Doctor?” grinned the Master lasciviously.

 

The guilt was surfacing in the Doctor again. It was true. He was responsible. He was interrupted in his reverie by the Master saying happily “Well, I can give you a demonstration. Just watch the screen there,” and, with that, he bounded out of the room, leaving the Doctor locked in behind him.

 

 

* * * * *

 

 

When the Master came to Jack he demanded a show of submission that he had not done for months. Though Jack was surprised by it, he obeyed without question. He knelt with bowed head when the Master required it, stripped the Master slowly and worshipped his body as much as he could without the Master's active participation. After that the Master suddenly ordered Jack to strip and lay face up on the bed. He moved on top of him murmuring “be enthusiastic.” He then proceeded to take him roughly and thoroughly.

 

Jack was used to the Master's games, and knew exactly how he wanted him to behave. And Jack was an expert at feigning passion. He gasped and moaned and called the Master's name, arching his hips and pulling him in as deep as possible. He was surprised by the Master's next whispered order, “tell me you love me,” but he complied instantly. Louder, ordered the Master and Jack yelled out “I love you” as the Master reached his climax.

 

The Doctor had seen everything on the screen in his room, as the Master channelled the live footage to it. He was horrified at the absolute subservience that Jack showed to the Master, then even more horrified by the enthusiasm Jack showed. Despite this, though he tried not to, the Doctor became aroused by the sight of his two ex-lovers entwined and moving together. He lost this arousal suddenly as, after the Master climaxed, he pulled out of Jack, picked up his laser screwdriver and shot him dead.

 

* * * *

 

 

A few minutes later the Master entered the Doctor's room, smirking. The screen showing Jack's room had now gone blank. The wrongness the Doctor had felt up to the moment the Master shot Jack had also gone.

 

 

The Doctor was outraged. “Why did you do it, why kill him? He did everything you wanted. He did nothing to give you a reason to do that.”

 

“Oh come on Doctor,” replied the Master. “What does one death matter. It's not important.”

 

“Not important ! He was my friend and you killed him.”

 

The Master was confused for a moment, then light dawned. “I don't believe it,” the Master crowed. “You don't know ! How stupid are you Doctor. You've been spending far too much time with these apes. Can't you feel it in him? The time vortex.”

 

“Yes of course I could,” the Doctor retorted. “He died and was resurrected. He was wrong and unnatural. But he's dead now and I can't feel it any more.”

 

“Oh he was more than resurrected, Doctor. He's immortal. Didn't Miss Jones tell you? He doesn't stay dead. And he doesn't age.”

 

The Doctor was speechless.

 

The Master was hugely enjoying his shock, and hammered the truth home. “You'll see in just a moment when he resurrects again. He's died a thousand times since you abandoned him, and I'm not exaggerating.”

 

The Doctor was reeling under the implications of the Master's words. He wanted to deny that it was true but, thinking about exactly what Jack's wrongness felt like, he had the horrible feeling that it was the truth and that he should have been able to see it from the very beginning.

 

The Master was continuing his diatribe with glee. “But the deaths are not what hurt him the most over the 130 years since you abandoned him. No, that was you. He loved you, you know. Poor deluded ape. And then you turn up and, instead of rescuing him from the hellish life he was in, you taunt him, tell him you left him deliberately on Satellite 5, and then leave him to face the consequences of refusing him.”

 

The Doctor blanched. The fact of Jack's immortality was only just starting to sink in. What that truly meant on Nirvana was awful to contemplate, and to discover that Jack had been in that situation for over a century was something that his mind did not want to grasp. And he had made it worse.

 

 

“He was a slave in all but name Doctor,” continued the Master. “How do you think his masters reacted to your demand for a refund?”

 

The Doctor bowed his head in shame.

 

“Shall I show you?” asked the Master.

 

“No!,” cried the Doctor.

 

But the Master was not going to be denied. He touched the Doctor's temples with his fingertips and sent edited highlights of Jack's confrontation with the overseer and the subsequent 30 days retraining into his mind.

 

Retching violently, the Doctor staggered back from the Master just making it into the bathroom before throwing up.

 

* * * * *

 

 

Jack came back to life with a gasp and jerked upwards on the bed. He couldn't understand why the Master had killed him. He had never done so before in the months that Jack had belonged to him. What had changed? Jack couldn't think of anything that he'd done to cause that reaction.

 

Footsteps sounded down the corridor and the Master swept into the room.

 

“So Jack, I suppose you are wondering what's going on?”

 

Jack was desperate to know what had changed, but he also knew that whatever the Master did was no concern of his. He answered accordingly. “No Master.”

 

“Oh come on, you must be a little curious about why I killed you after all this time ?”

 

“You can do anything you want to me Master.”

 

“Yes, I know,” the Master agreed, “but I do actually want to tell you this time.” He smiled, “it was a demonstration for the Doctor. He watched our intimate encounter live.”

 

Jack froze when the Master said that. He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it. He'd never wanted to see the Doctor again, and now the Doctor would know he was still a whore. He practically began to hyperventilate in his panic.

 

 

The Master, who had been watching him closely, laughed and said, “I thought you'd love to see him again, he's on his way up right now. You'd better get some clothes on.”


	32. Love and Hate

The Doctor was escorted to Jack's room by three guards. The Master was just leaving. “Lock them in together but stay outside,” he ordered the guards. “By the way Jack, he is not your master and you do not have to serve him.”

 

As the Doctor entered, Jack backed away as far as he could get, just a hint of the fear he was feeling on his face. In the last 135 years the encounters he'd had with the Doctor had led to intense emotional, and sometimes physical, trauma. Now the Doctor had just seen him degrade himself and submit to the Master, and god knows what his reaction to that would be. He tried to steel himself for the invective he would surely receive.

 

 

The Doctor regarded him with horror. After what the Master had shown him, and knowing what he now did of Jack's life after he abandoned him, he could understand Jack hating him. But he had not expected the fear. He moved towards him tentatively. “Jack?”

 

From his position in the furthest corner of the room, Jack whispered, “Go away Doctor, you bring me nothing but pain.”

 

The Doctor spoke gently and quietly. “I want to help you Jack. I know in the past I've treated you badly, but I want to make up for it now.”

 

Jack was unimpressed. “Treated me badly, is that how you think of it? That's so mild,” he sneered. “How about betrayed me, broke my heart, abandoned me to die over and over on the Game Station.”

 

“I'm sorry Jack,” the Doctor replied. “I knew Rose had resurrected you, which is why I ran, but I didn't know you were immortal.”

 

That Rose had resurrected him was news to Jack, but he had more pressing things to consider. From the day the Doctor booked him on Nirvana, and announced that he'd left him deliberately, he had thought that the Doctor knew he was immortal. But if he didn't know, this meant that …., Jack caught his breath. His next words dripped with venom. “So Doctor, you thought I'd die properly the next time and rid the universe of an abomination. Is that what you wanted when you left me on Satellite 5? Did you intend me to die there? Did you know how long it would take ?”

 

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply but Jack interrupted him. “It took six weeks Doctor. That's how long I'd have lived if I was mortal like you thought.”

 

The Doctor cringed.

 

“How many times did you think of me in the six weeks after you left me Doctor? Once? Never? Did it even cross your mind to wonder if I was OK, or if I'd got off the station?”

 

 

The Doctor finally found his voice. “No Jack, no. I thought you'd be able to get off the station. I never intended you to die there. I never realised your vortex manipulator would be damaged . Please believe me. I thought you'd used it to go straight to Nirvana when I saw you there.”

 

 

“I thought of you and Rose all the time,” Jack continued. “I thought of you every day, until you booked me as a client and ripped out my heart. But not after that.” He looked straight into the Doctor's eyes as he asked, “did you enjoy the vid Doctor? Did you let Rose see it, or were you afraid she might want to rescue me? That would have upset your cosy twosome wouldn't it?”

 

 

The Doctor was totally confused. “What vid ?”

 

“The one they made of my punishment,” shouted Jack. “The one where I was beaten and raped by 10 men! I know they sent it to you.”

 

“I never saw a vid Jack, I swear,” the Doctor replied vehemently. “You don't honestly believe that I would have left you there if I'd seen that?” But one look at Jack told the Doctor that that was exactly what he believed, and had done all these years since that day. No wonder he made his own way to escape on the research station, rather than take the chance of the Doctor helping him. And given the Doctor's behaviour and reluctance to help him there, it was perhaps a good thing he had.

 

“I'm so sorry Jack. I didn't even know there was slavery on Nirvana. I thought you were a prostitute by choice.”

 

Jack was really angry now. “I told you I couldn't walk out of there! I showed you the bracelets. How could you not realise?”

 

The Doctor did not reply, he could hardly say that he thought it would be Jack's ideal job.

 

“Do you know how many years I spent there hoping that one day you would find me?” continued Jack.

 

“I didn't until today. The Master just told me.”

 

“105 years, Doctor. I believed in you all that time. And then you do come, and you tell me I'm an abomination whom you abandoned deliberately.” With a huge effort Jack composed himself. “Well I have no faith in you now Doctor. I just want you to leave. You've caused me more pain and agony in my life than I can cope with already.”

 

“Please Jack,” the Doctor pleaded, “we're both prisoners here. I just want to help. I'll do my best to get us out of here.”

 

“You know, the Master never killed me before today. But you show up and he starts. I've had enough years of being a reusable experiment in killing techniques. So forgive me if I think your presence is a bad thing.”

 

The Doctor could see the barely concealed panic at the thought in Jack's face.

 

The Doctor looked at Jack intently and said sincerely, “I'm truly sorry Jack, for everything. If there was anything I could do to change what happened I would.” The TARDIS hummed approvingly in the Doctor's mind.

 

“Can you fix me?” Jack asked suddenly. “Make me mortal again?”

 

The Doctor had been thinking about that since the Master had told him that Jack was immortal. Even in the short time he'd had to consider it, he had realised that Jack was permanently connected to the vortex and there was no way to reverse his immortality. He could only apologise yet again. “I'm sorry Jack. There's nothing I can do.”

 

Jack hadn't even realised it himself, but he must have been harbouring the hope that someone someday would be able to fix him. But, if the Doctor couldn't do it, then no one could. He would never die. The horror of that thought and the endless years through which he would have to suffer were too awful to contemplate. He felt panic beginning to set in and squashed it fiercely.

 

There was silence for several minutes. Then the Doctor spoke up again. “Martha left me.”

 

Jack pulled himself together enough to answer. “I'm glad. At least she'll be safe.”

 

“She couldn't trust me after the research station,” admitted the Doctor.

 

“Sensible girl.”

 

Grasping the bull by the horns the Doctor plunged on. “She told me that it was the Satellite 5 victims that you were convicted of killing. I should have known that you weren't a murderer.”

 

Jack answered bitterly. “But you didn't did you Doctor? You found it easy to believe, as easy as that I was a whore by choice. It shows your true opinion, probably even when we were together.” Steeling himself for the response, he asked “I know you didn't love me when you saw me on Nirvana, but did you ever love me or was I just a convenient shag all along?”

 

He paused, but receiving no answer from the Doctor, which was an answer in itself, continued. “How many people have died for you Doctor? How many loved you, and how many thought you loved them? And you call me a conman!”

 

 

The Doctor shuffled nervously and finally admitted “I loved you as much as I have done any of my companions, and you were uncomplicated. You didn't expect romantic gestures, or anything really.”

 

If Jack had still loved the Doctor he would have been incredibly hurt by this. But he hadn't expected anything else and the hard shell around his heart protected him.

 

“So,” Jack summarised, “I was no more important to you than any other of your myriad companions. We were together because you thought I was easy.” He turned away from the Doctor then. “I was just a slut after all, wasn't I?” he added quietly. Gathering himself he turned back and faced the Doctor, determined to tell him how he had really felt. “Well Doctor, I did love you, and you probably don't care, but you were the last person I went with by choice. There would have been another, but he didn't want me. Probably thought I was too shop soiled.” And that did hurt him.

 

“And the Master ?” asked the Doctor.

 

Jack was surprised at this question. “What about him ?”

 

 

The Doctor knew he shouldn't say it but he just couldn't help himself. “That looked pretty consensual to me. You said you loved him.”

 

Jack was stunned by that. He yelled in disbelief at the Doctor. “What don't you get Doctor. I'm his slave. If he wants me to act keen, that's what I do. If he orders me to tell him I love him, I do it. If he ordered me to, I'd even shag you and look happy about it!”

 

 

With that, Jack slid down the wall to sit huddled in the corner. The Doctor obviously had no real understanding of his true state, of his conditioning to obedience. But this was exactly what he had expected from him. For a few minutes he had allowed himself to believe the Doctor's apologies. He'd lost count of the times the Doctor had said sorry. But he should have known better, the Doctor would never have any respect for him. He could feel the composure he had fought so hard for earlier disintegrating. The future loomed over him stretching off into infinity; an endless cycle of misery, heartache and pain.

 

The Doctor was already regretting saying what he had. Could he never keep his big mouth shut when Jack was involved. “I'm sorry Jack, I shouldn't have said that. I know it's not true.”

 

 

“Please just leave me alone,” whispered Jack, rocking to and fro. “Go away, go away” he repeated over and over again.

 

The Doctor could see that Jack was teetering on the brink of insanity, and probably had been for years. The Master had given him a taste, but he could only imagine all that Jack had been through due to his actions.

 

 

Things could have been so different if he had not abandoned Jack on the Game Station, or at least if he'd gone back for him once his regeneration sickness was over. Surely he could have coped with being near Jack for long enough to rescue him, even if it just meant taking him somewhere safe. He had compounded his initial betrayal by never looking beneath the surface of events on Nirvana. Then by initially refusing to help him on the research station; though he wanted to believe that given a bit more time he would have changed his mind. It was no wonder that now Jack hated him. He hated himself.


	33. Escaping the Master

Tosh smoothed down her uniform, picked up her mop and proceeded to clean the kitchen floor. The Torchwood team had tracked the van that they thought Jack had been inside. It had led them to the Kensington mansion of the Minister of Defence. That had been a shock to say the least. And, with no actual proof that Jack was in there, they had decided to adopt a subtle approach. Tosh had infiltrated the staff of the cleaning firm that looked after the house. She had been inside the mansion several times now and was gradually searching the place, but it was huge and so far she had not seen any sign of Jack. The Minister had walked right past her a few times but hadn't even spared her a glance.

 

Picking up some polish and a cloth, Tosh set off towards a wing of the house that she had not searched before. As she walked along a corridor she saw some people approaching from the staircase at the end. She quickly busied herself polishing the furniture and checked them out surreptitiously. Her heart leapt. One of the four men was Jack, and he was clearly being escorted by the three burly men. He did not see her, and when the men had gone out of view she quickly returned to the kitchen. She finished her shift impatiently. Once safely away, she hurried to tell Ianto and Owen that she'd found Jack, he seemed to be under guard, and that they needed to formulate a plan to rescue him.

 

* * * * * * * *

 

Over the days following their encounter, the Doctor and Jack had no more chances to talk; much to Jack's relief. The Master, however, took great delight in showing the Doctor many of Jack's memories of the past 140 years. The Doctor had fast come to the conclusion that immortality was an awful curse. The Master was especially gleeful when showing the Doctor his own sexual encounters with Jack, and the Doctor truly regretted what he had said to Jack about the Master. It was uncalled for and he had pushed Jack over the edge by saying it. The Doctor was also deeply ashamed that he had become aroused while watching what he now acknowledged was a rape.

 

The guilt that the Doctor felt over his abandonment, and subsequent behaviour towards Jack, was escalating with every memory the Master showed him. And, although he had found Jack's flirtatious nature annoying, he now mourned the loss of that innocence. He knew he was very much to blame for turning Jack from a confident man, happy with his sexuality, to this person who wrongly believed they were worthless and shop soiled.

 

* * * * * * *

 

The Master and four guards were in the TARDIS, supervising the Doctor as he fixed the circuits he had fused to prevent the Master having free reign of the universe. Jack was also present, and the Doctor was well aware that if he put a foot wrong in his repairs Jack would suffer. The Master had taken great pleasure in showing him some of Jack's worst memories and emphasised how much he could be hurt, suggesting several ideas of his own. It was not an easy repair, and wasn't something he actually wanted to do for the Master, but for Jack's sake he was doing his best. It was slow going though; he had been working on it for several days now and was only half way through the repair.

 

The Doctor had been amazed to discover that the TARDIS liked Jack, despite his wrongness. He was having to admit that his assumptions about her reaction had been totally wrong, and that, in fact, liked was perhaps too inadequate a word for her feelings.

 

Things were not so harmonious between the Doctor and Jack. In fact things were very strained between them, a situation for which the Doctor knew he was totally responsible. He had tried to apologise but Jack was unwilling to listen.

 

 

* * * * * * * *

 

(One week later)

 

Ianto and Owen waited in a van, parked down the street from the Minister's mansion. Tosh was inside in her persona as a cleaner. She was going to knock out the surveillance cameras so they could approach unobserved and enter through the tradesman's entrance, which she had left unlocked for them. Their comms beeped once and grabbing their guns and stun guns they set off.

 

Everything went well initially. They had entered the house and reached Tosh, but by bad luck had been spotted by a group of guards. They had stunned two of them, but the other two had raised the alarm, calling for reinforcements.

 

The Doctor and Jack were again being escorted by the Master and four guards to work on the TARDIS. The Doctor had finished the repair of the fused circuits a couple of days before, but there were still several more minor repairs that needed to be carried out before the TARDIS was in perfect shape.

 

The Master had just unlocked and opened the TARDIS door when one of his guards ran into the basement room. “Sir,” he cried, “we have three intruders in the house. They are armed and have taken down two of our men.”

 

The Master paused as he was about to enter the TARDIS, then ordered three of his guards to accompany the man back to help deal with the intruders. This left one man to guard the Doctor. Jack, of course, was no threat.

 

The Master turned towards the TARDIS, intending to lock the door prior to returning the Doctor and Jack to their rooms. There they would be out of the way while the intruders were at large. As he did so the TARDIS spoke urgently in the Doctor's mind. “Get Jack inside, without the Master, and I will take him to safety.”

 

The Doctor didn't hesitate. He threw himself at the Master knocking him away from the open door of the TARDIS. The Master was taken completely by surprise and crashed to the floor. The Doctor yelled at Jack to get into the TARDIS, but initially he didn't move. Only when the TARDIS ordered him to enter as well did he obey. The moment Jack passed through the doors the Doctor mentally screamed “Go!” to the TARDIS. The guard, meanwhile, had moved in to strike the Doctor viciously over and over with his baton.

 

As Jack ran through the doors they slammed just behind him. The central column began to move.

Once in the vortex, the TARDIS paused in its flight and trilled to Jack, speaking to him in his mind. He finally understood that she felt responsible for his immortality and the suffering it had brought him. She was infinitely sad that the Doctor had rejected him because of it, and had betrayed him. She had felt his despair over the months she had been in the Master's house with him, and before, for brief times on Nirvana and the research station.

 

 

The deciding factor in the TARDIS's decision to help Jack when the opportunity arose had been the encounter on Theta Aurigae IV. The human mind was not designed to cope with a billion years of memory. Total insanity was the almost inevitable result, even if the human had been treated well during this time. And this human had been treated very badly, right from the start of his immortal life. The TARDIS had recognised the being that ran towards her on that planet and had, in her guilt and horror at what he had become, fled from him all the way to the end of the universe. Helped by Rose, she had created him and she could not leave him to that fate.

 

 

The TARDIS had, for a long time, searched the timelines looking for the best place and time to help Jack without causing severe damage to time itself. She had considered many possible places and times to intervene, and followed the effects of her actions on future events. She had found that there was only one place where events could be changed, and Jack could be saved, without the Reapers moving in. It was against the most sacred laws of the Time Lords, and her pilot would not approve of her actions. But the Doctor had caused, directly and indirectly, a lot of Jack's misery and she was determined to make up for that despite him. And so the TARDIS materialised at the nexus point where events could and would be changed.


	34. A Second Parting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting this chapter and the epilogue today.

They landed on floor 499 of Satellite 5. Jack was shocked to see the scene of such horrible memories. The TARDIS calmed him gently and showed him exactly what had happened before and what must be done.

 

As a Time Agent, Jack had been trained never to interfere or cross his own timeline. And, although that training was now in his distant past, he hesitated. But the TARDIS pushed him onwards, assuring him that the timelines would remain intact, and he capitulated. He would risk anything to save himself from the life he had lived. Gathering his courage he stepped out onto Satellite 5.

 

He found his younger self looking at the TARDIS in disbelief. “Are you mad,” his younger self cried out to him, “what are you doing here, you're going to bring the Reapers down on us.”

 

 

Older Jack spoke with sadness, summarising quickly. “In three minutes you will die. Your death will buy the Doctor 30 seconds. He will not use it. He will not activate the delta wave. Rose will come. She will destroy the Daleks and resurrect you forever, and you will disgust the Doctor because you are wrong. He will betray you and abandon you here deliberately, leaving you to suffer an endless cursed life.”

 

Young Jack was understandably stunned by these statements. Even though it was himself telling him this, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. “No, you can't be right,” he argued. “He would never do that. You must have got it wrong.”

 

Immortal Jack had been expecting disbelief and was prepared for it. His telepathic skills were limited, but since this was his own mind he was going to touch, they should be sufficient. He laid his fingertips against mortal Jack's temple. He pushed gently at the younger Jack's mental shields and was allowed entry. He concentrated for a moment and the major events of the past 140 years flooded into the younger Jack's mind. The effect was immediate. Young Jack fell to his knees in horror. The combination of betrayal, loss of love and the memory of long years of pain and terror were overwhelming.

 

 

Young Jack wanted to deny it, to argue that the Doctor loved him, that he would not betray or abandon him, But he had seen the memories in his older self's mind. He knew it was all true and it broke his heart.

 

“You have one chance to avoid that fate,” older Jack added quickly. There are two minutes left. Leave now. If you stay, your death will mean nothing. It will make no difference to what happens to the Daleks. And the Doctor does not deserve your sacrifice.”

 

Still hesitating young Jack asked “But what about the timelines? Won't this bring the Reapers ?”

 

“The TARDIS tells me that it will not,” replied his older self, “she brought me here to make up for helping make me immortal and letting the Doctor abandon me all those years ago.”

 

With tears in his eyes, young Jack programmed his vortex manipulator with the coordinates of a planet well away from Earth and Satellite 5. He looked for a final time at his immortal self and vanished.

 

Immortal Jack stood for a moment. The burgeoning hope that the younger Jack would have a new and happy life was overwhelming him. “Good bye Doctor, good bye Ianto,” he whispered. Then he felt only bliss and love as the TARDIS spiralled their minds together, rushing outwards into the universe, as he and the TARDIS faded away.

 

* * * * *

 

One minute later the Daleks rolled unimpeded into the control room where the Doctor was working.

He had not quite finished the delta wave, but the Daleks were not aware of that fact.

 

The Emperor Dalek's voice echoed around the room. “Finish that thing and kill mankind.”

 

“You really wanna think about this, because if I activate this signal every living creature dies,” the Doctor bluffed.

 

“I am immortal,” replied the Emperor Dalek.

 

“Do you wanna put that to the test?” queried the Doctor.

 

“I want to see you become like me. Hail the Doctor, the great exterminator.”

 

“I'll do it,” threatened the Doctor, “unless you withdraw from Earth right now.”

 

The Emperor Dalek made no move to withdraw merely saying, “then move yourself Doctor, what are you coward or killer?”

 

The Doctor let go of the machine in defeat. “A coward any day. And it doesn't even work.”

 

“Mankind will be harvested because of your failure,” gloated the Emperor.

 

“And what about me, am I becoming one of your angels?” asked the Doctor.

 

“You are the heathen, you will be exterminated,” was the reply.

 

“Maybe it's time,” agreed the Doctor sadly. His people were gone, it was fitting that he join them.

 

“Exterminate,” they chorused and started shooting. The Doctor fell dead, the Dalek blasts leaving him unable to regenerate.

 

“We have annihilated the last of the Time Lords, we are the masters of the universe,” the Emperor Dalek crowed.

 

As he celebrated, the sound of a TARDIS materialising echoed through the control room. The doors opened and a woman stepped out in a glowing cloud of light.

 

“What have you done?” asked the Emperor.

 

“I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me,” replied Rose.

 

“You are an abomination,” the Emperor declared, as simultaneously the Daleks raised their guns and chanted “exterminate.”

 

Rose merely held up a hand to stop the blasts. “I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space, a message to lead myself here.”

 

“You cannot hurt me. I am immortal,” the Emperor sneered.

 

“You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence and I divide them ,” Rose said gesturing with her palm towards the Daleks.

 

In response the Daleks glowed and turned to dust.

 

“Everything must come to dust. All things, everything, dies. The time war ends,” Rose continued.

 

“I will not die, I cannot die,” shouted the Emperor as all the Dalek saucers began to turn to dust.

 

With the Daleks wiped from existence, Rose turned her attention to the Doctor who lay dead in the centre of the control room. “I want you safe, my Doctor,” she said sadly. “I bring life.”

 

As Rose said this the Doctor lurched back into life, still in his 9th form. He saw the piles of dust lying everywhere and gasped to Rose, “What have you done?”

 

He staggered to his feet, felt the awful wrongness in his own body and started to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Large chunks of dialogue in this chapter were adapted from the episode POTW. 
> 
> I have read in so many stories that being exterminated by a Dalek would permanently kill a Time Lord (i.e. there would be no regeneration) and in this AU I am assuming that this is the case. I guess it makes sense that by the year 200,100 the Daleks would have developed their guns to prevent regeneration.


	35. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting chapter 34 and the epilogue today. Don't accidently skip chapter 34.

The old man walked to the park with his great granddaughter and watched her play happily. He sat on a bench and mused on how close he had come to never having a normal life. But, thanks to the TARDIS, he had escaped immortality and moved on from the Doctor. He still had the memory of the life the immortal Jack had shown him, but the memories were muted, like a shadow of the real thing. This was fortunate, as he was spared the full emotional impact a life of such trauma would have had on him. The memories had made him realise what was important in life, however.

 

 

He had loved and wooed a woman, and they had spent years together roaming the stars, before settling down to have a family. They had 50 happy years together before she died. 21st century humans did not live as long as 51st century humans. Since her death he had loved others, male and female, but she would always be the most important relationship in his life.

 

His children and grandchildren were grown now, but he was still involved in their lives, and his great granddaughter's life. It had been a good life and he wouldn't change a minute of it.

 

“Come on Martha,” he called, “time to go home.”

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

The TARDIS had got things right. The universe needed its constant for the timelines to remain intact, so the events leading up to Rose conferring immortality on Satellite 5 had to happen. But a substitute could be found, and Jack released from that burden. The Doctor had unknowingly given his permission to be that substitute when he told Jack he would do anything to change what had happened.

 

The Doctor had pulled himself together after he was made immortal, and had saved Rose from burning up with the power of the vortex. But he had never been able to forgive her for making him 'wrong'. He had left her back on Earth in her own era a short time later. The Doctor assumed his other companion had died, but he never checked. Life went on. The TARDIS purred with contentment. She would never now be separated from her pilot. They would travel together forever.

 

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it folks. Thanks for reading.


End file.
